Six
by Flitty
Summary: An attack on Harry splits him into six very different personalities. Suspicions, threats and impossible changes are abound as the Mane Six take on the school of Hogwarts!
1. The Split

**I own neither Harry nor the mane six. Or the rest of the franchises.**

* * *

A just-turned ten-year-old Harry's Aunt Marge had visited one day, and the boy had been pushed even harder than usual. He didn't find the chores too much; they gave him something to do, and there were far worse things to deal with.

Like the shouting, for instance. Everyone yelled at Harry, for one reason or another. The Dursleys belittled him with comments of freakishness and laziness, the teachers were disappointed at his lack of progress in school, and the bullies saw him as an easy target.

Today, Harry had looked away from the pan for less than ten seconds, and when he turned back to the simmering bacon, it was too late. Vernon had noticed the minuscule difference in shades between a 'normal' piece of bacon, and the ones that Harry had cooked, in a truly obsessive manner.

Petunia had thrown him out of the house and into the back garden, where he spent the next three hours in the burning sun, and only a small birch tree for cover. It was one of those rare times when he was grateful for his small body, as he could easily fit into the trunk's skinny shadow.

If Dudley hadn't gotten bored of his brand new video games, none of this would have happened. As it was, the whale of a boy somehow managed to sneak up behind the emerald-eyed boy, no doubt breaking the laws of physics in the process of staying on his toes, and aimed a punch straight into the square of his back.

As Harry's spine curved backwards, unbelievably not snapping like the twig it resembled, he heard the barking of Aunt Marge's dog. He watched in minor disinterest as the four-legged incarnation of Death bored down upon him, snarling madly.

Harry had always ignored things like pain; near-starvation hurt enough that he had been forced to in order to survive on a day-to-day basis. This was the same. It hurt Harry as his left foot was torn to shreds in the mutt's jaws. At the same time, though, it really didn't bother him. This was just another creature to put on his 'list of revenge targets', as he called them. That name would be crossed off, along with the Dursleys', in less than two hours.

Harry grinned evilly as the Dursleys utterly failed to react in any way, simply walking silently back to the house and ignoring their blood-coated nephew. Marge had the decency to call Ripper back to her, but that was probably just to give him a dog-treat. The raven-haired boy pulled off his tattered belt in a sudden frenzy, realising his blood-loss situation, and tightened the length of worn leather around his shin, slowing the blood flow to the wound.

Their downfall had already begun, even as he dialled 999, pressed the call button, and held the device to his ears.

A feminine voice answered him. "Which service do you require?"

Harry paused, considering. He could get the police here, but an ambulance would serve the same purpose, as all he really needed out of the former were eye-witnesses. "Ambulance, please."

The operator seemed to pause at the youth of the voice, as well as the obvious pain it seemed to be in. The gap was hardly noticeable, however, and she quickly got the required service on the line.

Harry didn't give the new person a chance to ask questions, instead calmly telling them his location. "Hello, I'm in the back garden of number four, Private Drive, but I don't know the Postcode, so I hope that won't be much of an issue. The patient's name is Harry James Potter, and he was born on the Thirty-first of July, 1980."

Harry could hear a pitying tone in the man's voice as he asked, "What's your name?"

"Harry Potter, Sir." Just breathing was getting harder and harder for Harry, and his vision blurred even under his broken glasses.

"Well, Harry, I'm sure you're-" The man cut off, and Harry heard a shuffling of paper, as though he had made the connection between patient and caller. When he continued, his voice seemed even more sympathetic, though Harry would rather use the word 'infuriating'. "Do you know what happened, Harry? You seem perfectly fine, after all." Apparently this man couldn't read voices quite as well, or he would have noticed the frankly quite hard to miss strain under his voice.

Harry struggled to give a suitable answer, the world gradually darkening around him. All he said was "Blood loss," before he dropped the phone with a thud.

Harry Potter was lost to the world that day.

* * *

She groaned as she spotted a pink pony off in the distance. She really didn't like meeting anypony, much preferring the company of books, but she didn't exactly have a choice. Without any memories of this place, or any other place, for that matter, she would need to ask for directions to the nearest library. She walked slowly towards the pony, who was now bouncing around hyperactively, and took a deep breath. Without an obvious reason to start conversation, she felt incredibly awkward.

"Hello, I'm, uh." She cursed to herself, only now realising that she didn't have a name. She quickly made one up on the spot, one that somehow felt right. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I was wondering if there was a library in this place?"

Looking around, Twilight realised that said place was a barren, white void. Well, not quite. On the floor were scattered bushes, flowers, grass and a few trees. Several buildings occupied each side of the village road, towering above the sparse trees, but everything was white. Even the birds soaring overhead blended almost perfectly into the sky only shadows giving an indication as to their existence, and Twilight was somewhat unnerved by the sight.

"Harry? Are you awake?"

Both Twilight and the strange pony jumped at the voice, the latter forgetting to answer Twilight's question, while the former forgot that she had asked it.

Twilight's mind went to overdrive. This place didn't exactly seem realistic, and that voice all but confirmed her theory that she was dreaming. It was strange, though, that the pink pony had heard it too. It would only make sense that only one pony would be aware of the outside world.

Making up her mind, Twilight steeled herself. "Hello? I think I might be dreaming, so just pour water on me or something!"

* * *

"Bwah!"

The less than intelligent noise coming from Twilight's mouth had her blushing a little as she rubbed her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was her strange sleeping position. She was lying on her back, of course, like anypony was wont to do in a bed. However, her front legs lay beside her body, pointing in the same direction as her feet. She knew dragons, or baby dragons at least, slept in this way, but for ponies it was extremely uncomfortable. Except that this wasn't uncomfortable. It was like her front legs were _supposed_ to stay that way. 'Arms,' a hyperactive voice in her mind helpfully supplied, and she nodded in absent agreement.

It took a while to realise that she was soaked to the fur, but she couldn't care less about that at the moment.

Twilight had read about humans, or at least that was what her lack of memories allowed her to assume, and with the extra mini-limbs coming from her... hands and foot, the strange, rather thin clothes, and the complete lack of fur, she abruptly realised that she had become one of the mythical creatures.

Wait, foot? Why was that singular? Twilight wrenched open her eyes, blinked a few times and began to take in her surroundings. At this point, a rather unpleasant smell washed over her, certifying her location. Namely, that of a hospital. She glanced around at the few paintings on the white walls, the empty vase on her bedside table, and the two human doctors next to that, on her left. It wasn't lost on her that the male-looking one carried a rather large bucket, and wore an expression similar to the sheepish grin sometimes found on ponies.

Twilight's legs just felt wrong. There was something missing from one of them, something important. The probably-female doctor sat on the edge of her bed, and gave her an apologetic grimace. "Harry, I am so sorry. We couldn't save your foot, it was infected by that dog so we had to take it off you."

Twilight, or 'Harry' as she was apparently called here, gulped audibly and nodded, not remembering what happened but understanding the signs of amputation. She closed her eyes and flung the covers off her body, then opened one eye.

The right leg was exactly what she had expected; it looked just like a younger, less angular version of the human leg she thought she had seen in an ancient tome. The left one, however...

"Wait a minute," Twilight finally spoke up, after more than five minutes of staring. "How long was I out, for the stump to heal so well?"

Indeed, Twilight's leg, instead of ending in a bloody mess or a metric tonne of stitches, simply... stopped just above the ankle, as though somepony had cut it off, then sealed it with a perfect circle of skin. No stitches were in sight, and she didn't believe this sort of perfection possible, even with alicorn magic.

The male doctor shifted into a somewhat straighter position, coughed uncomfortably, and answered in a strained voice. "We don't know. We've had doctors from around the globe come in to have a look, but nobody has come up with any ideas. I'm beginning to think that strange fellow was right about it being magic, but i guess we'll never know for sure."

The female human took over, pushing the male towards the door. "You've been sleeping for a week, now, and a lot has happened. For a start, those _Dursleys_," she spat the word out like it made her sick, "have been arrested on charges of neglect and child abuse, after some of your bruises turned out to be from belts. You don't have to go back there, now, but that also means to don't have a place to stay."

"Who are the Dursleys?" Twilight asked, curious but also dreading the answer.

If the doctor was surprised, she didn't show it. "They have been your guardians since almost nine years ago, when your parents died in a car crash."

Twilight was grateful to this woman; she was the only person who spoke to her as a person, rather than a filly. She actually gave useful answers, rather than 'maybe when you grow up'.

"Why do you think I don't remember anything?"

The doctor gave a helpless grimace. "I don't know, Harry. It might just be from the shock, you could have hit your head at some point, or it might have been an unconscious decision on your part." She rubbed her temples and sighed. "A week ago, on July the Thirty-First, you called the emergency services. After calling, you told the ambulance your location, said something about blood loss, and passed out." She paused, as if to let it sink in. "We later found, thanks to spying neighbours, that you had been attacked by a visiting Aunt's dog, and left to die by your relatives. The dog was put down, your Aunts and Uncle were arrested, and your cousin was taken in by a nearby orphanage, separated from you after we found signs of bullying."

Twilight goggled. "That doesn't sound like a nice family at all! I guess the neglect is why I'm so short." A question popped up in the back of her head, and she couldn't see a reason to not ask it, so she did. "Why do you keep calling me Harry, anyway? My name's Twilight, isn't it? Anyway, I don't know your name yet."

The other participant in this strange conversation giggled. "I'm Amanda Baker, but don't you think Twilight's a strange name for a boy?"

'Colt,' Twilight's mind supplied in that strange sugar-rushed voice, and twilight blanched. She didn't even want to ask right now.

"I wouldn't know, I named myself less than twenty minutes ago," Twilight told the woman, deciding to opt for some of the truth. "I don't really care if it sounds girly, it's my name now, since I don't remember being Harry."

The conversation was interrupted by the male doctor from before, who had just tripped over a bin in his haste to appear next to the woman. Slung over his shoulder was a black drawstring bag, which he set on the bed next to Twilight, gesturing for her to open it.

Wrenching the mouth of the bag open, Twilight reached inside and carefully grasped a strange object. Pulling on it, her mouth fell open.

She knew instantly what it was, of course. A prosthetic foot. A flat piece of metal, forming a strange approximation of an actual foot, proved that. The metal bent upwards, then forwards, to keep the centre of gravity where it would be in a real foot, and a spring attached to a rotating joint helped to simulate a loose ankle. At the top was a sort of shallow cup or a socket, where she supposed the stump should go.

Hesitantly, Twilight pulled on her left leg, bringing the stump closer to herself. She brought the top of the fake ankle towards it, and jumped when the two pieces snapped together. Amanda rushed forward and pulled the prosthetic back off. Twilight thanked her profusely; the foot had given her stump a rather uncomfortable pinching sensation.

The man laughed a little sheepishly, then rummaged in the bag, finally pulling out...

"A sock?"

"A sock," he confirmed, and shoved it onto her leg. "The prosthetic is held on using magnets that we managed to get in your stump, and the pinching was because they're too strong. Just wear a thick sock, and you'll be fine."

Twilight tried the foot on again, and this time it didn't hurt. She carefully got out of bed and put her tiny amount of weight on the foot, then stepped it up a bit and began to hop.

Hours of practising later, Twilight finally settled down alone in her bed, and drifted off to sleep.

"Oh, you're back! You just disappeared and started talking with the other voices, and I didn't get to tell you that my name's Pinkie Pie, or at least I think it is!"

Twilight groaned.

* * *

**You're probably going to see lots of plot bunnies on my account, with almost none actually finished. I lose interest in things really quickly. If something stops being interesting for me, I'll abandon it, to return as and when I feel like it.**

**Feel free to adapt my stories into something new, but make sure to give me a link- I'll want to read it, after all.**


	2. One Year Later

**Don't own, never will, etc.**

* * *

The system was happy.

After Twilight and Pinkie Pie had begun exploring a year ago, more ponies had appeared until there was a total of six. Rainbow Dash was first, then came Rarity, Applejack and finally Fluttershy. As each pony appeared, their world slowly became more vibrant. The skies turned blue, the plants became green, and so on. Eventually, the small village was a paradise.

Meanwhile in the real world, the System was doing well in school. Rarity and Pinkie Pie organised all the parties in the school, and the latter defied physics so thoroughly that more than one quantum physicists were called in over their final year at primary school.

Applejack helped to tend to the trees and flowers outside, and earned several awards for contribution to the school, while Fluttershy happily played with the many animals surrounding the building.

Rainbow Dash beat the odds within a week of first arriving at the school; despite the missing foot, the System was soon known as the fastest runner in the school. The other five couldn't use the prosthetic quite that well, so they also became infamous as the most clumsy sportsman in the world

Meanwhile, Twilight was concentrating on converting her unicorn magic for use in the human body. It was tough going, as she had to unlearn all she knew about magic, then rebuild it into something similar, but without the need of a focus.

By the end of the year, she finally mastered it, able to levitate things, burn them, transform them and a whole host of other things.

Then the letter came.

It was early one morning, and Fluttershy was out on her daily stroll through the nearby woods. A sound caught her attention, a noise that was fairly common at this time of day. Glancing around for the source of the owl call, Fluttershy stumbled on the peg-leg, and the rest of the System hissed in protest.

"S-sorry," she mumbled, and heard the exasperated reply of Rainbow Dash in her mind.

_'Ugh, it's fine, but do you have to get distracted so easily?'_

Twilight cut in quickly, remembering how easily scared Fluttershy was. _'It wasn't your fault, Fluttershy, that owl did sound much closer than usual.'_ The shy girl perked up at that and nodded, once more scouring the trees for signs of the bird.

_'Ah reckon it's in that tree,'_ Applejack supplied, taking control of an arm and pointing. Sure enough, a tawny owl was perched on a branch, holding out a leg towards the bright-eyed boy.

_'Fluttershy, mind if I take the wheel?'_ Twilight asked, and the she gladly gave up control of the body, which the lavender unicorn snatched up immediately. She cautiously assessed the situation, considering her course of action, before Rainbow groaned and stole control of an arm, snagging the letter before relinquishing her grasp. "Hey!"_  
_

Twilight could hear the grin in Dash's voice as she replied. 'You snooze, you lose!'

Grumbling incoherently, Twilight pulled open the envelope and took out...

"Parchment?"

* * *

The system lay asleep in their bed, gathering in the town square of their mindscape. When Applejack finally stalked in, muttering about vermin and carrots, the meeting finally got underway.

Of course, they could have just spoken from where they had been previously, this being their mind and all, but it couldn't hurt to see everyone else's faces.

Rainbow Dash started off, uncharacteristically serious. "Think we should go to this Hogwarts place?"

Rarity huffed. "I think it sounds far too messy for a lady. What kind of a pony names a school Hogwarts, anyway?"

"Ah think ya might be forgetting that they ain't ponies, Sugar cube. They're probably a little strange thanks to their magic. No offence, Twilight," she added, and the lavender unicorn giggled.

"None taken."

"I think we should go! I want to make a giant party for a giant castle-school!" Nopony questioned Pinkie's knowledge of the school building, instead simply noting that lessons would take place in a castle, and letting the party pony continue. "Maybe I should get really old balloons, because the castle's really old, or maybe ghost-cake for the ghosts! Ooh, and I need one for the eye-laser snake and the giant spiders and the dark lord of all evil badness and or baldness! Maybe he'll turn good if I use the party cannon!"

Everypony pretended to not notice the casual mention of an evil lord, even Fluttershy, who just wanted to see all the magical creatures that the school had to offer.

Twilight called a vote in favour of going, and only Rarity hesitated, before her curiosity got the better of her and she too raised a hoof.

* * *

"Mum, we got a letter from an owl and it's an invitation to a magic school which Pinkie says is in a castle and I need to write a reply asking for assistance because the owl's still waiting for one and we need someone to help us get books anyway bye!"

Amanda Baker was understandably surprised when her usually calm adopted kind-of-but-not-daughter-who-lives-with-five-other-kind-of-daughters-in-a-male-human-body-even-though-they-are-all-female-ponies thrusted a letter into her hands, speaking at nine hundred words per minute and racing upstairs to their bedroom. After reading through the letter once, though, she was positively beaming.

There was something here for the entire system, all within the safety of what was apparently a castle. Twilight had the magical studies to look forward to, Rainbow had broom-flying, Fluttershy had Care of Magical Creatures and Applejack had Herbology. While Pinkie Pie and Rarity didn't have anything in particular, Pinkie could create large-scale parties and keep everyone happy, while Rarity would have a whole new range of test subjects.

Yes, this school could do a world of good for her girls. While they had each other, they had never really socialised with anyone else with the obvious exception of Pinkie, and it would be nice to see them chatting with friends outside the System.

The thought of living alone once more was a small price to pay for the sheer happiness she would see on her daughters' face for the next few days.

* * *

One week later, halfway through a nice, relaxed lunch of apple and banana sandwiches, a booming from the outside nearly scared Fluttershy out of her wits. After almost a minute of silence, the System blamed the noise on a broken-down car, and she picked herself up shakily from her hiding place under the table. With her mother at her side, the not-so-secretly terrified girl crept towards the front door.

Another boom sounded and the door caved in a little as Amanda stepped in front of Fluttershy, who quickly pulled Applejack to the wheel. The booms continued at a steady pace, and the door finally gave way after ten hits.

Standing on the other side of the doorway, crouching slightly to peer inside, was a gigantic man with a rather sheepish grin on his bearded face.

"And who might y'all be, then?"

_'Applejack, now he'll probably think we're a farmer or something!'_ Rainbow complained, but Twilight overrode her.

_'I'm sure he won't come to such a strange-'_

"Are yeh a farmer or summat?"

Twilight groaned good-naturedly as her predictions were once more shot down by her incredible powers of fate-tempting. _'Okay, laugh it up, girls, it's not like you've ever been wrong about anything before.'_ She grinned evilly in Applejack's mind for a moment, putting the giggles to an abrupt halt, before continuing in a dramatic stage whisper. _'The headless chicken-leg incident.'_

Oddly, the temperature in the room seemed to drop, and the large man shivered involuntarily, coincidentally widening the doorway a large amount. Inside the mindscape, four ponies had frozen mid-laugh, then dropped their heads in shame and embarrassment. Applejack, who had barely managed to avoid chuckling before now snorted, barely handing control to Twilight before she burst into peals of laughter.

"Anyway," the giant was saying, "sorry 'bout tha'! Reckon I should knock more careful-like nex' time." He stooped into the hallway and effortlessly put the door back in place, then tapped it with a magenta umbrella, muttering some sort of spell. Twilight watched, really quite impressed, as the hinges sprung back together, the dents evened out, and the doorway reattached itself to the wall, once more completely intact.

After checking his handiwork for any flaws and nodding happily, the man introduced himself. "Me name's Rubius Hagrid, Keeper o' Keys at Hogwarts. Yeh'll know all about tha' from yer letter, o' course." Hagrid seemed to finally take in the System's full appearance, and his eyes widened impossibly. "Blimey, Harry, wha' on earth 'appened to yer leg? I on'y ever seen Moody with-"

"Excuse me, Hagrid," Amanda interrupted angrily as Twilight flinched slightly, and she put an arm around her daughter. "My dau- son's name is System Baker, not Harry as you seem to believe, and I don't feel you have any right to bring that painful subject up!"

It had taken an incredible amount of work to legally assume the name of System Twilight Pinkie Dash Rarity Jack Shy Baker, mostly due to the moral concerns of the name choices, but eventually Amanda had managed it for her daughters, just so they could answer to 'System' in public, and use that name officially.

In other words, it was just for convenience really.

Hagrid seemed well and truly cowed by now, and he looked down in defeat, before brightening a little. "Anyway, I'm here to show yeh where t' get all yer school stuff, Ha- System," he corrected, as Amanda shot him a glare. "Sorry. I saw yeh as a baby, yeh see. Was a great friend of yer... birth-paren's, 'fore they... but enough o' tha'," he suddenly declared, obviously trying to change the subject as a tear slid silently into his beard. "le's get to Diagon Alley."

* * *

**Forgot to add this stuff in bold before, and I was wondering what was missing.**

**Anyways, next time, the System's reaction to Diagon, and maybe even the Express!**


	3. Shop Rage

**I don't own anything in this story, other than the prosthetic leg. That's patented and everything.**

* * *

"Welcome to Diagon Alley!"

Fluttershy and Amanda stared around in unadulterated shock as the bricks slid away, revealing the main shopping centre for magical humans. The streets were packed with witches and wizards of all shapes and sizes, and some hags and vampires could be spotted intermingled in the crowds.

Towering above the street, and eerily reminiscent of the System's mindscape, stood gigantic buildings, with tens of signs littering the walls, some hanging dangerously above a few people. They could make out a bookshop, a place for potion ingredients, a pet shop, a broom shop, a place for robes, and a joke shop.

The System was flung into chaos. Everypony fought for the reins, hoping to go to that one shop they could relate to, until the prosthetic slipped on a stone in the road and they went tumbling towards the ground, landing splayed on their back.

Amanda helped them up, but not before berating them in a whisper. "Honestly, how many times have I told you to not fight? You could have hurt yourselves even more than you did!"

"Mum, we're fine," Rainbow Dash grumbled, having jumped in to take the force of the fall. "Just tripped over a rock, that's all."

Hagrid, completely oblivious to both the conflict and the fall, turned back towards the pair, pointing towards a great building that had just come into view. "Tha's Gringotts, run by Goblins and the mos' secure bank in England. Th' Potters have a vault in there, an' we need to get yeh some money."

"Pardon me, but did you say Goblins?"

Hagrid just waved a hand in response to Amanda's question as the others hurried to his side. "Goblins," he confirmed with a slight nod. "Yeh'd be mad to try an' rob it."

* * *

"Nex' up, Ollivander's," Hagrid told the System and Amanda, as the three turned off the path, and a decrepit-looking shop towered overhead. Still a little green in the face, the giant of a man shuddered. "Mind if I ge' me a li'l pick-me-up?" At the two shaking heads, he shuffled off for a brandy, leaving Amanda and her daughters to enter the shop.

The inside of the building was covered in dust, as though it was forbidden to clean in any way, shape or form. Twilight warily cast a detection spell, and stiffened when she noticed a presence directly behind her. Spinning on her glorified peg leg and willing up her magic, she came face to face with a misty-eyed, grey-haired old man, who seemed to harbour just a touch of senility on his person.

"Ah, I've been expecting you, Mr Potter. Impressive, to have noticed me at such a young age." The man nodded mysteriously, then continued, snagging a long, thin box from a shelf and twirling it round his fingers. "Your mother-"

"Yes?"

Ollivander whirled around at the feminine voice and blinked under the harsh glare from Amanda. "I beg your pardon, Ma'am, I admit that in my later years, I have regretfully become far less observant."

Amanda didn't relent her gaze, instead stepping menacingly towards the visibly sweating wandmaker. "I'm _System_'s mother, and might I ask how you know his birth name?"

Ollivander tripped over his words, taking great care to use System's current name as the wands warned him of the hidden anger behind Amanda's voice. "I-I believe you understand System's past from Hagrid?"

Amanda nodded, and her eyes widened in understanding. "Of course, the scar! We'll need to get rid of that somehow if you want to have a proper education, otherwise you'll be swarmed by fans." She rolled her eyes at that, Dashie mirroring the action perfectly, and called over to her raven-haired daughter. "System, think you can make a glamour to cover it?"

Twilight slipped into control, and the milky-eyed wandmaker muttered something as the lightning bolt scar flickered, then returned in full force. Ollivander coughed lightly, then repeated himself for the others to hear. "That lightning bolt is a cursed scar. It cannot be covered by any but the strongest illusions. Although I am curious as to your power. A second ago your magic seemed to heavily favour agility, but now I am far less certain."

Dash shrugged, once again in front, and Ollivander's jaw fell ajar. He shook himself out of it, then plucked up another wand, muttering, "curious... Very curious..."

_'Ooh, I know! Let's keep switching!'_

Pinkie's prankster nature had surfaced once more, and even Fluttershy and Rarity embraced the idea with rather evil mental smiles.

Twenty minutes passed, the six switching around every time the wandmaker thought he had found the perfect wand. He began to grow more desperate as time went on, before he finally snapped at Dashie's fourth turn outside. "Oh, for Merlin's sake! You seem to be fine at wandless magic, I know when I'm not needed!" He wrenched up a blue box, then thrust it into the System's hands, Amanda giggling behind him. "That's a fake wand, pretend to use it so nobody will find out about your wandless magic as it will be very useful to you. Mahogany and unicorn hair, eleven inches if anyone asks, thanks for visiting and please never return!"

* * *

The System, their single parent and a gigantic man trotted down the street, Pinkie in the lead, humming a catchy tune as she skipped along. Hagrid jogged to catch up, shaking the ground slightly with each step, and he pointed towards what at first glance seemed to be a massive pair of scissors. "Tha's where we need to go nex', Madam Malkin's. Need yer robes, after all."

Rarity instantly took over, although only Amanda noticed the tiny differences in behaviour as she continued skipping, tripping ever so slightly on the fake leg.

"This place is simply marvellous!" Rarity exclaimed, weaving between sets of robes, taking great pains to avoid knocking the clothing racks strewn across the floor. Eventually a harried Madam Malkin managed to usher the hyperactive fashionista-at-heart towards the fitting area, where a pale blonde boy was already waiting to be fitted.

"Hogwarts too?" the boy questioned rather rudely, but Rarity remembered that he was just eleven years old, and gave him a little leeway.

"Why, of course," she replied, but the blonde stole back the conversation, raising an infuriating eyebrow in her direction.

"My father's next door buying my books, and my mother's down the street looking at wands," he told her, rather unnecessarily. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully my father into getting me one, and I'll smuggle it into school somehow."

Nopony in the System liked this boy; he was rude, arrogant, a bully...

"Have you got your own broom?"

Rarity started as the boy actually let her speak. "Not yet, I'll have to wait until second year, obviously," she told him in a superior voice, and satisfaction came when the boy's face tinged with pink.

"Think you're better than me? Then what's your family name?"

Rarity raised an eyebrow, looking at him in the way that most would regard a chunk of dirt. "Baker, but I don't see how that could possibly matter."

The pointy-faced boy put on a smirk. "I'm a Malfoy, and we're powerful in the wizarding world. Watch yourself, mudblood, my father could get you kicked out of Hogwarts instantly."

Malkin bustled over, two sets of robes folded over an arm, and handed one to each person, before essentially shooing them away.

* * *

The next stop was the bookstore, and Twilight gleefully leapt into command, almost buying out the shop as she zoomed around, grabbing book after book in her magic. Hagrid, along with the store owners, seemed at a loss for words as she flipped through each book, before throwing each and every one onto the main pile, barring a select few, which she shoved back onto the shelves with far too much force, a look of disgust crossing her face.

Eventually Hagrid recovered enough to gibber, "I-is he... wandlessly an' silen'ly... How?"

The shopkeepers just shook their heads incredulously as Amanda tilted her head slightly. "Is this strange, then? This... strength of magic?"

The male shopkeeper, who had unconsciously picked his quill up and was now absently tapping the inky end on his face, silently shook his head, before clearing his throat. "Not so much the strength as the fact that he isn't using a wand or words. Only powerful witches and wizards can use weak magic without both, but to carry those books without either... It's almost unheard of! Those have to weigh more than six people!"

By this time, the tower of tomes scraped the ceiling, and Twilight blushed slightly, placing the pile on the counter and handing control to Fluttershy before she could empty the vault in a shopping frenzy. Thanking Merlin for his magic, the shopkeeper waved his wand and muttered something, before a blue mist shot out of his wand, reforming into a golden seventy-seven, a silver six, and a brown zero. "That comes to Seventy-seven Galleons and six Sickles. And might I suggest going just down the road to buy a trunk with a library inside?"

* * *

Nothing much happened for the rest of the day, and the System said goodbye to Hagrid, Pinkie doing the honours and actually speaking. It was kind of depressing, watching the last trace of magic vanish in front of them, but...

"We're going bowling for your birthday, girls, so get moving and I won't take no for an answer!"

They still had their mother.

Come to think of it, leaving their only family behind would be even more heart wrenching, come the school term.

For now, though, the System looked forward to the bowling trip soon to take place.

* * *

**That's a wrap!**

**Sorry for my sporadic updates, but college is getting in the way of things, and my insomnia is apparently wearing off thanks to the workload.**

**I actually redid the Ollivander's scene completely after reading a review; same result with the fake wand, except with angry Ollivander instead of puzzled Ollivander.**

**Writing that scene reminded me of Discord's "For goodness' sake!" moment when he tried to brainwash Fluttershy. I thought it was fitting.**

**Next time, the System boards the Hogwarts Express!**

**Until then!**


	4. Train Ride

**Harry Potter and all related products belong to JK Rowling. Please support the official release.**

* * *

"Wow."

That was all Amanda could manage as she and her daughters stepped through the false barrier, Twilight having cast a magical-leak detection spell to locate it after Hagrid ran off, somehow forgetting to give them directions.

They all liked the man, really, but he was just so scatterbrained sometimes.

Fluttershy just nodded mutely in agreement, gazing in awe at the bright red steam train parked in the bigger-on-the-inside platform.

Then things began to go downhill. Some older boy with dark skin and darker hair pointed at the System, muttering something towards two identical redheads. Surrounding people began glancing 'discreetly' in their direction, stopping and staring at the strange metallic object that the first-year had in place of a left leg.

The System was wearing the robes they had been given by Madam Malkin, which turned out to be custom-made. the shirt and jumper were the same as everyone else's, white under grey with a black and dark grey striped tie, which would apparently change colour after they had been sorted.

The System's trousers, however, held the first sign of deviance from the norm. Whereas the right leg stretched down almost to the floor, the left cut off just under the knee, revealing the black, white and grey mechanical leg.

This piece of technology, designed by Twilight mere days after the split, was just a simple socket on top of a peg leg with spring suspension. The spring was designed to have just the right amount of give to allow for easy walking, while still looking nothing like a foot.

None of the system particularly wanted the prosthetic to be foot shaped; Twilight had compiled plans for a semi-realistic foot, but the plastic used for 'skin' left the whole thing looking just human enough to be creepy, so that idea was gladly scrapped.

The System's cloak almost looked identical to the other first years', the only difference being in the cut at the bottom. In order to keep the mechanisms of the leg from jamming, the cloak was unsymmetrical, shorter on the left than the right.

With the shoulder-length messy black hair, the brilliant green eyes and the round glasses, this boy stood out remarkably, even among witches and wizards surrounding them.

Fluttershy shrank in at the attention that the System had yet to become accustomed to, huddling into Amanda's side as she gently placed a hand on the shy girl's back, subtly steering her towards the Hogwarts Express.

Coming to the open doors of the scarlet steam engine, the kindly parent planted a kiss on her daughter's forehead, and waved her off into the train, desperately holding back her tears at the sight of her girls leaving. It wouldn't do to make them feel guilty, after all.

* * *

Hermione glanced up from her copy of Hogwarts: A history as the door slid quietly open, noting a messy-haired boy wearing glasses as she did so.

"Umm... May I sit in here please? If you don't mind, that is..." The strange boy seemed to curl into himself, hiding behind his shoulder length mane, before Hermione nodded, glad of any sort of company.

"I don't have a problem with that, I'm Hermione Granger by the way, I didn't even know about-" Hermione stopped mid-sentence, blushing slightly in embarrassment as she realised that the boy had pulled the door half-closed, hiding most of his face behind the frame, leaving just an emerald eye showing. She coughed lightly, restarting the conversation in what she felt was a better manner. "Come in, I could use the company?"

The boy smiled shyly, figuring out that Hermione was unsure herself from her tone of voice, and stepped inside, a clink on the floor highlighting the step.

Hermione held back a gasp as the boy's left leg came into view, a mechanical prosthetic from around half way down the shin. He was walking on it as if it was a normal leg, like he'd had it forever.

"I'm..." The boy's name was lost under the hissing of steam leaving a funnel, and Hermione realised she was still staring at the left leg. The boy seemed to notice too, and crossed his legs, hiding it behind the one whole leg he had left. Hermione gulped, worrying about losing her first chance to make a proper friend, but eventually her curiosity got the better of her.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to you leg for you to need a prosthetic?"

Cowering under the attention, the boy mumbled something too quietly to hear. That was when things got strange.

The boy straightened up, pushing his glasses up his nose and sighing exasperatedly. He pushed his messy fringe out of his eyes and reintroduced himself in a confident, almost pompous tone. "I'm System Baker, you probably didn't hear it over the train earlier, and w- I lost my leg to an infected mad dog." He pulled a book out of his small trunk, then turned back to the bushy-haired girl, far more confident than his earlier shy behaviour would allow. He was almost like a different person! "I don't actually remember the dog, w- I have amnesia up until my birthday a year ago."

System- what an odd name- flipped open the book, and grimaced as his hair whipped around in the sudden breeze from the pages. Hermione wondered why, until she saw a small dark line on his head. Hardly daring to breathe, she asked, "Is that-"

"A lightning scar," he confirmed, wincing slightly as if caught stealing cookies. "I changed o- my name to System Baker after- I lost Harry's memory. My uncle and aunt by blood had apparently been abusing Harry for his accidental magic, and just left him to die. The doctors think he specifically wanted to get the Dursleys in prison, from the way he spoke on the phone."

During this speech, Hermione's eyes had grown wide and her mouth had dropped open, but she did note a few anomalies in his speech. For starters, he always referred to himself before his amnesia as a different person. From what she had read, this didn't happen often, unless the amnesiac didn't agree with his past self and consciously separated themselves.

His speech difficulty was far more of an enigma. He seemed to stumble on first person pronouns, starting with 'w-' before correcting himself with 'I', and it seemed to be the same with 'o-' and 'my'.

She couldn't think of any useful connections to make, and left it for now, vowing to research as soon as she was alone.

* * *

The silence lasted a while as both students perused their choice of book, Hermione glancing up incredulously every now and then at the NEWT level book on wandless magic that System had picked.

Eventually, however, the quiet was broken by the sliding of the door, which revealed a chubby, red-faced, pink haired boy who seemed embarrassed at something or other; Hermione didn't know what, but she could probably guess.

"Oh my stars, whatever happened to your hair?"

Hermione jumped at the strange mixture between male voice and feminine mannerisms that System had just used, and set about wondering just what was different now to twenty minutes ago, to change his... His everything, really. He was sitting in a way that would impress most royalty!

Suddenly he was back to a far more normal sitting position, pulling out his wand and waving it aimlessly at the newcomer's magenta hair as he went back to reading his book. Hermione was about to interrupt with a rant about the correct usage of wands, the need of incantations and the incredible danger that pointing a wand at a person could have, when a quiet pop sounded and the boy's hair became a bright blonde.

The bushy-haired future Gryffindor-or-perhaps-Ravenclaw gasped as she watched System throw the basic laws of magic out the window, while the new boy's jaw had dropped. "How did you do that?" she demanded more than asked, and System hunched over a little and blushed, obviously embarrassed.

"It wasn't much, I just-"

"-Broke about fifty laws of magic, I noticed," she exclaimed dryly.

The one-legged tween blanched, caught off-guard, and his mannerisms changed once again, back to shy-System. He huddled into the corner, obviously terrified at something. It took Hermione a moment to realise what that face was.

It was a face that she herself had once made- the face of someone singled out. Her teacher had always acted awkwardly when she had made that wide-eyed face back before year four in primary school, and she finally understood why as she attempted to reason out a new path for the conversation. As if by some miracle, the door slid open once more to reveal a pale, platinum haired boy, whose eyes searched around the compartment. The once magenta haired boy had unconsciously sat down as the door opened, but the pale boy had eyes only for System.

"Baker," he spat, tinged pink as the addressed smirked cockily back at him. "We meet again."

"What is this, a showdown between the hero of light and the dork lord of all?" System scoffed, and Hermione marvelled once more at his sudden attitude swap. The pale faced boy, for his part, pulled a smirk of his own onto his face, which now resembled strawberry ice cream in colour.

"Watch yourself, Baker. I didn't come here for you." He turned to face the other two, smirk still in place (though now the pink was slowly fading), and raised his voiced a little. "I heard that Harry Potter was on the train for his first year at Hogwarts."

System seemed to be trying incredibly hard to not burst out laughing. He managed it, too, for around three seconds, after which he broke out into hysterics, muttering something unintelligible under the gales of laughter. Hermione managed to make out a few words, like 'get' and 'out', before he stood up, still giggling like a maniac, and calmly pushed the pale faced boy back through the door, where the latter collapsed into a pair of rather large thugs. The platinum haired boy muttered a few curses and stalked off, the thugs following dilligently.

"Sorry about that," the remaining half of the conflict murmured, obviously unsure of himself. "W- I met that idiot in Diagon." He sniffed lightly in disdain, adopting that perfect posture again, and continued in a voice of mild disgust. "Draco Malfoy. Bullies his father, whom has a high standing in wizarding society, for privileges such as taking his own broomstick into first year. Also thinks lowly of those with 'impure blood', at least judging by the conversation we had." He turned towards the other boy in the compartment and asked, "I don't believe I caught your name before?"

"Ne-Neville Longbottom," the blonde stuttered, and sank further into the cushioned seat as Hermione, too, turned to face him.

Luckily, the door once again interrupted the awkwardness by sliding open, and a kind woman's voice asked, "Anything off the trolley, dears?"

System was instantly on his feet bouncing around like a madman as he inspected the goods in the most hyperactive way that was humanly possible. "I'll have..." He continued to glance around at the sweets, the savouries and the sours, before eventually yelling, "I can't decide!" He thrust a hand behind his back and pulled a wallet from nowhere, thrusting his hand inside and taking out a handful of Galleons. "I'll take eight of everything!"

* * *

Twenty six Galleons and a considerably lighter trolley later, System began passing one of each product out to his new friends, who still stared at him like he was crazy. He probably was, Hermione's brain told her. After all, he had just... changed, more than five times in the train journey. It was like he was six friends at once, instead of just the one.

Come to think of it, she should start categorising his different moods for the future. She began making a note of what she had seen.

1: Shy, afraid of being singled out, quiet, unwilling to draw attention to himself.

2: Generally cool and confident. Was reading NEWT level textbook. The mood I have seen using the most magic, can most likely perform wandless magic, and can perform wordless magic. Embarrassed when I acted amazed, possibly doesn't want to draw attention like 1?

3: Posh and proper, but seems to dislike pureblood supremacists. Fairly outspoken against people he dislikes. The most feminine mannerisms and vocabulary.

4: Confident when facing others. Seems to dislike Lord Voldemort, and unafraid to insult him. Outspoken and a little cocky. Possibly the closest mood to what the wizarding world expects of Harry Potter.

5: Hyperactive, bouncy and generally maniacal. Indecisive, liberal with money. Bought eight of each product for three people, seems to love sharing. Random and off the wall sense of humour. Seems to materialise objects from nowhere, similar to cartoon characters. Essentially a living cartoon character.

Having finished her list, Hermione turned to the gigantic pile of candies sitting next to her. A voice attracted her attention, and she sighed as she registered what it had said. "Aint y'all gonna eat that?"

Looked like she would need to write this down somewhere.

* * *

**This took a while, what with Fenton PokePortal and other stuff, but I found it in me to continue. The next chapter will once again be in the System's POV.**


	5. Stage Fright

**Harry Potter doesn't belond to me, and neither does MLP. I thought we went through this already.**

* * *

The System curiously looked on as Hermione jotted something down in a notepad that she had procured from her bag. _'What do you think it is?' _Dashie asked the others, an eyebrow raised in question.

_'A notepad,' _Twilight deadpanned, currently in control of the body.

_'You know what I mean,'_ Dashie accused, sticking her tongue out at the bookworm of the System. _'Do you think it's about us?'_

_'Does it matter if it is?' _Applejack retorted, and the other two blinked. _'She's our friend, and she doesn't seem the type t' just blabber everypony's secrets everywhere. 'Sides, everypony'd just think she was a couple haystacks short of a barn if she told 'em!'_

Twilight nodded, glad that Applejack had stepped in, and went back to her light reading.

Nothing of note happened for the remainder of the journey. Neville took to gazing out of the window, having entirely failed to notice his missing toad. Said toad was currently with Fluttershy, who had control of the right arm and used it to play with the escapee while Twilight read her book of fire magic, converting the written magic into her own brand of magic. Usually, she'd just concentrate on the image of the fire that she needed: from match-sized to forest-sized. She marvelled at how the psuedo-Latin words seemed to transform the magic, but she ultimately couldn't get common wizarding magic to work in her favour, so just used her own brand.

In the mindscape, Rainbow Dash was practising her flying. She might never use it in the real world, but it did help her reflexes, as well as being fun. Pinkie had just beaten Rarity for the six-hundredth time, Applejack watching on as she watered the masses of tulips. All in all, there wasn't much to say as the time crept on.

That would eventually change.

* * *

"An' there's Hogwarts!" Hagrid bellowed over the heads of the first years, who for the most part leapt out of their skin and whipped around to face the gigantic castle that towered impassively over them. Rainbow Dash, who was in control, whistled lowly as they slowly floated towards the other bank. A cry of "Mind yer heads" brought the students out of their trance, and most ducked, despite Hagrid being the only one tall enough to actually hit the low-hanging branches.

The boats bumped against the shore, and the first years hopped out, quickly following the giant of a man (half giant, technically, as Twilight had found in a book) towards the castle. Hagrid rapped three times on the humongous front door, and it opened immediately to reveal a rather tight lipped woman, in emerald green robes, with her greying hair tied back into a bun. "The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid stated, and the addressed nodded politely.

"Thank you, Hagrid," she replied, and Dashie began tapping her foot at a tune only she knew, impatient to get inside and see the new school.

_'Ten pounds says that they say that every year,' _Twilight promised, and it took a lot of willpower for Dashie to not grin in the real world.

_'Twilight,' _she moaned pitifully, _'Stop making my job harder, or I'll end up getting us in detention!'_

_'It can't be that bad, surely,' _Rarity reasoned as Dashie began walking, following the rest of the students, but Twilight shook her head.

_'We have no idea how strict this school is,' _she reminded them all. _'For all we know, a smile in the wrong place could be enough to send us home. These wizards don't seem to have their heads screwed on tight enough, after all.'_

_'It could be the opposite, though,' _Dashie input hopefully. _'Maybe they won't be as strict as Primary school!'_

_'Ah seriously doubt that's possible,' _Applejack deadpanned, eliciting groans from the others minus Dashie. The last year of primary had been laden with bullies, and only Dashie could keep them in line. A number of nights that year had been spent nursing bruises. Maybe, though, a magical school wouldn't be as bad.

_'Anything's possible, AJ,' _Twilight returned and the others groaned again. Dashie's mental self looked almost happy, though. She'd always liked getting into fights with bullies, because it was the only real source of action she'd get. Maybe this Quidditch game that the System had heard about from Hagrid would help in that area.

The students were now in the gigantic entrance hall, and McGonagall had left them alone as she walked briskly through to the main hall. Some people began whispering among themselves. The System heard four words in particular being repeated, and Twilight put everything together. _'Okay, girls, the four words are houses, and you share dorms and lessons with your house, and each house has certain connotations. Gryffindor is for the brave and bold, and they're rivals with Slytherin, which is for the cunning. Slytherins are apparently evil or something, but I don't believe a word of that. Hufflepuff is for the loyal, but people seem to think it's for the leftovers, and Ravenclaw is for the book-smart. Which leaves us with a problem.'_

_'Which house are we?' _Fluttershy asked, as a strange song began to explain exactly what Twilight had worked out.

_'Ah reckon we should work out which of us go where, then work it out from there,' _AJ suggested, and Twilight nodded, already making suggestions to herself as to which house the others would belong in.

_'Let's start with the easy ones,' _she told the System, taking charge as she was wont to do. _'I'm a Ravenclaw, and Pinkie's probably a Gryffindor.'_

_'Dashie's a Hufflepuff or Gryffindor,' _Pinkie added, and the others took her opinion as fact, as always. _'Rarity's a Slytherin, AJ's a Hufflepuff, and Fluttershy's a Gryffindor!'_

_That _caused their heads to turn. Fluttershy, a Gryffindor? That was like calling Dashie a Ravenclaw, or Neville a Slytherin! _'Um, Pinkie-'_

_'Definitely a Gryffindor!' _the party pony interrupted the shy pegasus, stunning them all into silence while their minds rebooted.

_"Abbot, Hannah!"_

_'Oh, the sorting's begun,' _Twilight observed meekly, hoping to forget about the previous conversation. The System watched as name after name was called, and the corresponding person stepped up to the ripped hat sitting at the front.

Applejack groaned as 'Baker, System' was skipped over. _'Y'all know what this means, right?'_

_'It means we'll be called up as Harry Potter,' _Rarity replied, and they all shuddered lightly.

"A-are you cold?" someone asked from next to the System, and Fluttershy automatically turned to the right, finding herself face to face with Neville.

"Oh, um, I'm fine," she mumbled, absently placing a hand where the blonde's toad was about to jump. Sure enough, Trevor leapt onto the hand and was quickly given back to the stuttering boy.

* * *

"Granger, Hermione!"

Glad for the distraction, Fluttershy turned to clap as Hermione was quickly sorted into Gryffindor. She might not know the girl very well, but it was only polite, after all.

* * *

"Longbottom, Neville!"

"G-good luck," Fluttershy whispered as Neville stumbled forwards, tripping on the hem of his robes. Dashie cackled in the mindscape, but Shy silenced her with a _Stare_. The rainbow-maned pony whimpered slightly, and the others sans the butter-coated pegasus shuddered. She was scary like that.

After a minute's wait, the hat yelled "Gryffindor!" much to the surprise of the entire System, and Neville raced to sit down, Twilight stealthily plucking the hat off his head to save him from any further embarrassment. Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow as the decrepit headwear was deposited in her hand, but although she searched for a good few seconds, she didn't seem able to sense that the magic belonged to the System.

* * *

"Potter, Harry!"

The entire hall went silent as that name was called, the entire student body waiting to get a glimpse of the Boy-Who-Lived. Fluttershy gulped, and gave up control to the others, the anticipation proving too much for her. Rainbow Dash controlled the left leg, Applejack took the right, and Twilight kept the rest of the body stable as the System stepped up, holding back nervous shivers as they went.

"I changed my name to System Baker a year ago," Twilight spoke clearly, directing the information towards the Headmaster of Hogwarts, as well as Professor McGonagall.

The latter nodded silently, then spoke up again. "Baker, System."

The System could hear low muttering begin to form as Dashie stepped forwards on the half-leg, punctuated by a loud click as the bottom of the prosthetic touched the stone floor. They stepped forwards again and again, every second step announced with yet another click, and Twilight chanced a look at the staff table.

Professor Dumbledore, the teacher that had shown up most often in the unicorn's research, had a small smile in place as he regarded them, but that twinkle that she had seen in his eyes in the moving photographs was dimmed, almost to the point of non-existence, and his face seemed pale.

Professor Sprout, long standing teacher of Herbology, had a look of sympathy and pity, the latter of which served to slightly aggravate Dashie, Applejack and Rarity. They could almost feel her making assumptions, marking her as disabled before ever meeting her. She had her heart in the right place, but she would need to learn that System Baker was nothing if not independent.

Professor Flitwick, the equally experienced Charms teacher, didn't even seem to care that the leg was a fake. He had the air of someone who believed that physical disabilities were just an obstacle to overcome. Not that anypony could blame him; being all off three feet tall, the man probably knew what it felt like to be singled out because of some abnormality.

Professor Snape, the Potions master, seemed to pale with every step that the System took on the prosthetic, but still found it in him to sneer at them. Fluttershy's natural cringe almost showed itself in reality, but Twilight managed to crush it down with the help of Rarity, moving quickly past the bitter professor.

The only other teacher of any real note was McGonagall herself, whom had showed little emotion throughout the entire sorting, remaining impartial to Gryffindor and Slytherin alike. Now, however, they could see that she was holding back shudders, most likely imagining what had gone so wrong to end with a missing leg.

The student body was whispering among themselves, sectioned off into four tables representing each house. The System couldn't understand what any of them were saying, but from the occasional glances in their direction, it was about them.

_'We should throw them a party!' _Pinkie yelled suddenly. The others had grown far too used to this, so they all nodded distactedly in their minds.

_'Sure,' _they mumbled in distracted unison, and Pinkie pumped a hoof into the air, grinning madly.

Finally reaching the stool, Dashie took full control of the body and let them fall onto the minuscule seat. The dirty, ripped hat was lowered carefully onto their head, covering their eyes and segregating the System from the rest of the world.

* * *

**Cliffhanger!**

**Are you excited because I'm excited I've never been this excited well except for that time I saw Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire coming soon in Game one day but I mean really who can top that?**


	6. Sorting Woes

Nothing happened.

The six just sat there, for what felt like ages. Then something extremely unexpected happened.

A drop of water landed on the System's shoulder.

Unless there was a leak somewhere in the enchanted ceiling, that wasn't just a drop of water.

It was a tear.

_'Uh, dude, are you okay?' _Dashie asked, entirely forgetting that not just anyone could hear when you spoke to them in your mind.

And so, for the first time in Hogwarts history, the Sorting Hat cried. And cried. It bawled its eyes out, for well over five minutes, before Fluttershy had a sudden panic, and Dash left control to Rarity to find out what had caused it.

There, in the middle of the street, was a hat. The Sorting Hat. Its wailing had quietened down by now, and it was blearily glancing between the gathered ponies.

_'Are you okay, Mr Hat?' _asked the yellow pegasus as she recovered, and the hat nodded vigorously, wiping a tear out of its metaphorical (though now nopony was so sure) eye with the ragged brim.

_'I can die happy,' _It sniffed with an expression of pure bliss gracing its face, _'just seeing you all as you are now.' _The native inhabitants of the mindscape, minus Rarity, exchanged baffled looks, before turning back to the hat. _'Look at you all,' _it sniffled by way of explanation, _'Six minds belonging to all the different houses, and you get along seamlessly! You've given me the hardest choice of all, however... Where to put you?'_

_'Not Slytherin,' _Rarity's voice echoed suddenly, and the hat raised an eyebrow, snapping back to what seemed to be its regular self.

_'Not Slytherin?' _it repeated incredulously, _'Why ever not? You could be great, you know, it's all inside your head...'_

Rarity snorted disdainfully. _'That featherbrained colt, Draco Malfoy, was sorted there, and we have enough of your so called 'greatness' to last for six lifetimes,' _she shot him down, and he sighed.

_'Well, I suppose that would be a problem then,' _the hat mused aloud, then looked around at the others. _'Maybe Ravenclaw, you're all exceptionally intelligent for your age, but only Twilight seems to have any sort of inclination towards reading that makes a true Ravenclaw. I suppose that leaves Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, then.'_

_'Gryffindor,' _Rainbow Dash said suddenly, the others nodding along with her choice. The hat seemed to consider, going back to thinking out loud.

_'I'm not entirely sure about that,' _it remarked, its gaze meeting Fluttershy's for ever so slightly longer than the rest as its eyes panned across the mindscape. _'You're not all courageous warriors, but you all have a burning flame of loyalty-'_

_'Which is why you're going to put us in Gryffindor with our new friends,' _Fluttershy warned suddenly, cutting the bundle of rags off with a _Stare_. It shivered slightly, then nodded inaudibly, shuffling away from the butter-furred pony.

The rest of the System suppressed their own shivers, even as a slightly wavering voice yelled "Gryffindor!"

On hearing that exclamation, Fluttershy returned to her usual self, blushing and wrapping her legs around themselves as she was showered with praise. Dashie took control of the body and stood up, bouncing expertly on the false leg as she walked down to the thundeous cheering of the Gryffindor table. Two redheaded boys, twins by the look of it, jumped onto the table and made several rude gestures towards the Slytherin table, yelling "We got Baker!"

Dashie gave the two a thumbs up as she realised that they were purposely drawing attention to their new name, and the others passed around ideas for gifts in return. Pinkie, in particular, decided to do everything in her power to get those twins what they needed.

And according to her, that meant pranks, and enough money to open a shop.

Applejack and Twilight looked on, watering the mindscape's flowers for something to do and grinning widely.

This would be a fun seven years.

* * *

It was the first class of Hogwarts: charms.

Twilight sighed as she rested her head on her hands, gazing morosely at the quill on the desk. She groaned inaudibly and pulled a sheet of parchment towards herself, as the quill's tip dipped into the ink.

Unseen by the book savant, Professor Flitwick watched in unconcealed shock as Mr Baker's feather moved across the parchment of its own accord, scribbling something that he couldn't read onto the surface. He almost clapped his hands in delight when he realised that Baker must be controlling it wordlessly, but stopped himself, frowning lightly.

Despite having it out and pointing towards his quill, Mr Baker's wand wasn't being used. Flitwick's goblin blood made him far more sensitive to magic than most others, and the magic, instead of flowing through his hands, seemed to pulse throughout his entire body, and it felt somewhat unnatural. There was far too much control in that aura, probably more so than even Dumbledore possessed, and it was both exciting and unsettling for the Professor. He decided to hang back and wait for more information to show itself, as information was prone to do.

That came quicker than expected.

Less than five minutes later, Baker had swish-and-flicked the parchment away, before setting the quill back onto the desk. His posture seemed to change, like the teacher had noticed during the sorting, and the magic seemed to gravitate towards his forehead. Now sat much straighter, the humanoid enigma stiffly flicked his wand.

This time, the spell was different. It wrapped around the quill in a way that suggested incredible control, and although it didn't show in the finished product, he knew that the spell had been refined beyond belief.

The boy was suddenly different again, slouching in a way that reminded the Professor of the late James Potter. Letting loose a remorseful smile, he realised that System did have a piece of his birth father within him, after all.

The magic, though... Flitwick almost evacuated the room. The magic had taken the form of wings. Gigantic, spiky wings spreading from the boy's back, to be exact. Every now and then, a bolt of pure energy would dart towards someone nearby, only to stop less than an inch from their heads. As the spell was cast, a bolt hit the feather and zapped it into the air. More bolts began to juggle the quill, but eventually one missed, and System cursed lightly before changing yet again.

Flitwick cringed. The boy had curled in on himself, shying away from others around him, but the magic focussed into his pupils, giving them an eerie quality. the magic used to lift the quill, however, was tender and caring.

Quicker than the other changes, System sat up and began bobbing in his seat, grinning wildy and incessantly tapping his foot on the ground. His magic... vanished? Flitwick watched in awe as his oddest pupil ever moved the quill erratically without magic. However, like the Ravenclaw that he was, he quickly got over his shock and began compiling possible resources to help his mind along.

The three Ws was a commonly accepted magical theory- wand, word and will. It was, however, possible to use magic without all of these things present.

Was it possible to use magic without, well, magic?

The three foot tall teacher sighed and filed it in the back of his mind. He'd figure it out eventually.


	7. Magic Tricks

**MLP belongs to JK Rowling and Harry Potter belongs to Lauren Faust.**

**Wait...**

* * *

Dashie skidded around the corner and pelted into the classroom, closely followed by a panting Neville Longbottom. Grinding to a halt on the false leg, she glanced around wildly for the Professor, but relaxed as only the students could be seen.

_'The cat,' _Twilight said suddenly, and Rainbow leaned towards the tabby on the teacher's desk, scrunching her face up and squinting at the seemingly normal animal.

_'Your turn, I can't figure it out,' _she finally told the bookworm with a displeased growl, and Twilight almost dropped control as it was shoved into her hooves.

Mentally berating a sheepish Rainbow Dash, Twilight continued to stare at the cat for a few seconds more, before finally pulling away and standing straight. "Sorry we're late, Professor McGonagall, we got lost," she told the stunned tabby truthfully, then went to sit at the back of the class, Neville already seated to the System's left, and Hermione to their right.

To the class' shock, the regal cat leapt off the desk and sprung up to become the stern form of Professor McGonagall. "Yes, well, next time, perhaps I should Transfigure one of you into a compass, or a map," she grumbled, but they could sense some curiosity in her voice. "However, might I ask how you recognised me?"

Twilight, along with Dashie, cursed their own stupidity. Here they were, first day at school, and they'd already been singled out from the others.

Much to the shock of the others, Fluttershy took the reigns and answered the Professor without pause. "Well, I had meant it as a joke, but the first rule of joking is to never be surprised if the joke turns out to be true," she lied with absolute confidence, deflecting the question with ease.

The lesson began, but the first five minutes were spent by the others in the System gaping wide-eyed at a furiously blushing Fluttershy.

* * *

Professor McGonagall kept her eye out for promising students as she sat back down from handing out the matches. Her gaze drifted over the redhead, Ronald Weasley; the most inspired of the lot, Hermione Granger; the really quite unastounding System Baker; the-

Wait.

Silently casting a magical sight spell, the Transfiguration teacher almost had to cast a locking charm on her jaw as a myriad of bubbles popped into view. Although this wouldn't allow for the same accuracy that a certain half-goblin could achieve, the basic structure of the spells could be easily spotted.

The biggest bubble was a notice-me-not charm, but the structure was like nothing she'd ever seen! On the left hand side, a second, smaller bubble overlapped the first, locking them both into place. Three further bubbles, each representing a silent alarm spell, further stabilised the array.

The Deputy Headmistress sighed inaudibly, grasping at knowledge from her school days to puzzle out a weakness in the set of spells. Attempting to tear down the wards would set off the alarms; but breaking the alarms would destabilise the main spells, and the backlash could easily kill the boy.

Studying the bubbles out of the corner of her eye, the Professor finally spotted a weakness; namely that the alarms were designed to stay in one position, so System would be forced to take down the wards, after which she would be able to catch him before he left, without raising his suspicions. Praying that he could pull off the feat without causing a magical backlash, the Professor idly studied the lowered heads of her students, unable to tell how System was getting along in his Transfiguration.

Though judging by the sheer intricacy of the wards, she didn't suspect she'd have a reason to worry about his skill-level.

* * *

Twilight barely refrained from banging her head on the desk as she sensed the magic well up in the teacher's eyes. She hurriedly fished the fake wand out of her pocket and prepared a spell behind the notice-me-not to turn the miniature water-sculpture of a pegasus pony back into a slightly silvery match.

Applejack groaned as she caught on, taking control and dropping her forehead onto the desk with a bang. Now sporting a pulsing headache, Dashie and Rarity glared hexes at the sheepish farm-pony.

Attempting to gloss over her rather silly action, AJ turned to Twilight, cocking her head sideways. _'Not to call y'all a liar or anything, Twily, but I thought that spell was s'posed to keep attention off us?' _she questioned, and the lavender unicorn sighed.

_'Spells, plural, but yes. I was counting on the assumption that nopony would notice anything in the first place, but the professor is using a magical sight spell, so she probably knows that we have more spellpower than we let on. And since I don't use magic in the same way as wizards, she'll most likely notice a difference and report it to the Headmaster.'_

Rarity trotted over looking rather pleased with herself at that point, so the distressed unicorn turned towards her. _'What if we pretended that we didn't even know about the charms?'_

Twilight blinked twice, then her eyes widened and she threw herself onto Rarity with a sound that sounded suspiciously like 'glomp!'. She untangled herself sheepishly and stood back up, going over the quickly forming plan in her head_._

Sometimes it was best to hide behind truth.

* * *

Back outside the mindscape, Professor McGonagall hid a gasp behind her hand as the wards simply melted away, in a way that would usually result in a small implosion. She watched intently as the magic condensed into a shapeless blob, before seeming to coat the apparently unaware tweenager, who had grabbed Neville Longbottom's arm and was now guiding him through the wand movements, enunciating the spell clearly to him.

Neville followed the movements a few more times, before switching to the incantation, and finally putting them both together. To the teacher's immense surprise, his match became pointed and silvery, the epitome of a perfect matchstick.

The youngest Longbottom excitedly whispered a question in System's direction, and McGonagall pricked her ears up and set up a hearing spell, dropping the magical sight to prevent magical exhaustion, as a despondant sigh left System's lips.

She almost ducked when System glanced suspiciously in her direction, but she managed to pass off her staring by letting her eyes slowly roam across the sea of heads. The odd boy gave a sort of half shrug, before discreetly closing a hand in front of him.

"It's kind of clichéd, but here." With that warning, the hand opened to reveal a dancing green flame, which then shifted colour and shape into a blue feather, before finally dissolving into nothingness. System then tapped a finger on the wooden match, which instantly shifted into a metal fishing hook, before changing back when he tapped it again. "Don't tell anyone, though, okay? W-I already stand out too much as it is."

"U-uh, sure thing," Neville stuttered, and McGonagall couldn't help but let a small grin through her mask of impassiveness, despite (or perhaps because of) her utter shock. She could see the bravery of the blonde boy shining through, and she couldn't help but wonder when System would polish the diamond in the rough.

The bell rang at that point, and five minutes later, she sat alone at the desk, her grin widening even as she transfigured a sheet of parchment into one of those muggle notebooks she had seen Hermione Granger scribbling in. There was an entirely new mystery to solve, and she had just been given a piece of the puzzle.

The rest would come later, but for now...

'System Baker

Highly skilled at several forms of magic.

Subconciously casts and stabilises notice-me-not wards.

Wards fell automatically while addressing Neville.

Seems to distrust most adults.

Helpful and a good teacher.

Dislikes standing out.'

She snapped the book shut and stood up to get ready for her next class.

* * *

**I'm really sorry these chapters are so short and far-between, but I keep having different ideas for the lessons and stuff, so I keep deleting different bits, so etc etc etc you get the point.**

**I'm doing one class per chapter, so I think Herbology, flying and Potions, and then a surprise!**

**It involves a certain person who's missing a few body parts himself. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.**

**By the way, I'm writing a novel! Just go to .com for sporadic updates and other nonsense!**


	8. Baked Maybes

**Harry Potter and My Little Pony are both collaborative projects by JK Rowling and Lauren Faust. Something like that, anyway.**

* * *

Applejack perked up as the System glanced at their timetable, which indicated Herbology in twenty more minutes. Twilight absently attached a small alarm spell to the back of their right hand, still muttering rather loudly to herself about the events that had played out in Transfiguration.

_"She might have taken pity on us this time, but what if she goes to the healer about our magic and they notice something wrong? What if powerful witches and wizards can read minds?"_

Pinkie giggled happily, bouncing over to Twilight with a plate of freshly baked cookies balanced precariously on her tail. _"Then we'll all be protected by you! It's hard to see through enormous supermassive clouds of unfounded distress!" _ She shoved a pale blue cupcake with toppings randomly strewn over it into Twilight's magic, before moving onto the others. Rarity got a gaudy golden cake with a half-hearted topping of sprinkles; Dashie's had an overly decorated pale green swirl of icing; Applejack's seemed to be made from a fruit smoothie; Fluttershy's was an angry red with what seemed to be chilli pepper flakes on top; and Pinkie's own cake was a pitiful, dull grey thing with no decorations at all.

The others, minus Applejack who seemed rather pleased with her own cake, glanced at each other unsurely, before they all shrugged and tossed the cupcakes into their mouths.

_"Pinkie, there's hardly any cake there!"_

_"Darling, pardon me for being so blunt, but this is ridiculously sweet!"_

_"Yeuch, tastes like toothpaste."_

_"Pinkie, what kinda fruit tastes like dark chocolate?"_

The party pony simply grinned as most of her test subjects attempted in vain to get the aftertaste off their tongues. Her own mouth now tasted like rocks, but that just meant that the experiment worked. _"Do you like them? They're called... well, I don't know yet, but they're just like you, except the exact opposite!"_

Twilight sputtered for a bit before finally spitting her words out in disbelief. _"So you think I'm overweight then?"_

Pinkie's mouth dropped open and and her eyes widened comically, before she was suddenly rolling on the floor, giggling like a maniac. _"Oh nonono! It's supposed to be symbolic! The cupcake was all airy because it represented an airhead!"_

Five blank stares met the pink pony, and although she couldn't help but see that something was wrong, she couldn't tell what so she carried on as normal. _"Rarity's cake was too sickly sweet, Applejack's was lying, Dashie's was minty and artistic and Fluttershy's was made from liquid rainbow!"_

There was that feeling again, like she was missing something obvious. Her back had gone itchy, too, but she couldn't remember what that meant.

Oh, well. She would figure it out eventually.

_"Oh, and mine tasted like cardboard. Not that really tasty cardboard, either, the really yucky stuff." _She tilted her head in thought. _"Actually, I think the tasty cardboard was actually pizza. It's hard to tell sometimes."_

Wait a minute. an itchy back meant that somepony was hiding things... but who was the culprit?

* * *

Albus Dumbledore sighed happily as Professor Sprout filled the last chair in the staff room, absently bouncing a few silencing charms on the walls and door. He sat up straighter and glanced between the heads of each house, struggling to keep the calm facade as each teacher twitched amusingly at the twinkling of his eyes. "Ah, everybody is seated. Care for a sherbet lemon?"

As usual, the other four professors politely declined, and as usual, Albus felt a small pang of pity for each of them. Honestly, what did it take for anyone in the wizarding world to break tradition and pop a single yellow sweet into their mouth? It was quite frankly getting on his nerves. For now, though, Albus had to begin the first bi-weekly meeting of the heads of house for the year. This was his favourite part of the job; it was only during these meetings that he really understood what good the school was doing for its students.

"I believe we had best skip the formalities," he chuckled, secretly eager to get the show on the road, "and start in alphabetical order by surname. Filius, if you would?" All attention turned to the tiny man, the two women quietly excited and Severus more disdainful.

Filius beamed and rattled off a list of promising first-year students, pausing every so often to emphasise a couple of particularly impressive feats of magic he had come across. "... And System Baker! I must say, he's certainly picked up his mother's incredible skill in charms!"

Albus' eyes widened a little in acknowledgement. He'd actually been planning on talking about System's intergration with the school, but if he could just steer the conversation in the correct direction, he wouldn't even have to suggest the topic himself. A quiet snort from the Slytherin head gave him just the window he needed. "Is there anything you have to say on the matter, Severus?"

The surly professor snorted more loudly this time, garnering the full attention of everyone in the room. He glanced in thinly veiled disgust at the excitable head of Ravenclaw and opened his mouth to speak. "That boy is nothing more than an attention seeking brat, Albus, rather like his father." Pomona angrily opened her mouth to defend the boy, but Albus gave her a quick look and she nodded reluctantly. "He has been sauntering around the school, disregarding many a rule, no doubt. Changing his name just to announce it before his sorting. Does that sound like the act of a competent wizard to you?"

Minerva tucked her seat in a little to sit up straighter and looked Severus in the eye. "There has been no evidence that System has been doing any worse than wandering around an unfamiliar building and trying to get to know it better. As for the name change, I believe Hagrid has already explained about System's adoptive mother."

Pomona broke the ensuing silence. "Ooh, that reminds me, I found out System's full name by looking at the registry." She sounded quite bemused and even Severus turned to her in curiosity. The Herbology professor cleared her throat and glanced down at an open notebook on the desk, flipping through the pages for a second. "System Twilight Pinkie Dash Rarity Jack Shy Baker."

Albus choked rather violently on his sherbet lemon as Filius fell to the ground in a hysterical heap. "Wh-what kind of a name is that?" The Charms teacher asked weakly.

"Well so much for System not being attention-seeking," Minerva deadpanned, having only just reigned in her own incredulous laughter. "I'll have to ask him why he has so many names, and only two of them masculine." Severus glared at the Gryffindor head as she continued, turning to Albus. "System certainly seems to be good at surprising people, at the very least. I have no doubt that he must be incredible at Transfiguration like his father."

Albus caught on quickly to her word choice. "You haven't seen his work yet? I believe you've also had a lesson with him... Unless I'm mistaken?"

"No, there's no mistake. System put himself under a complex notice-me-not charm, held together by three silent alarms and a stabiliser. I barely caught a glimpse of a Transfiguration spell from him. He finished and dismissed the notice-me-not safely, but I don't think he even knows what he's doing. Near the end of the lesson the wards dropped so he could show Neville Longbottom something. Which is another thing, he can cast a wandless incendio, though he seems aware of his more simplistic spells. I believe the notice-me-not was a reflex of sorts to the attention he's been getting, since he isn't used to it."

The other teachers listened solemnly, but Filius bounced right back as her speech ended. "I have a few things to add. Firstly, System was not using a notice-me-not in my room, but I don't think he realised that I was watching him. Secondly, he can cast a wandless levitation charm-"

"Prepostrous," Severus muttered into the hand he was leaning on. Levitation charms were some of the easiest spells to accomplish, but they were also exceptionally difficult to cast without a wand, as they required a particularly precise application of magic, unavailable without a wand to all but the greatest wizards.

Filius smirked at the Potions master. "He can cast a wandless levitation charm _perfectly_," he emphasised gleefully. "He also seems to have several different forms to his magic, accompanied by changes in attitude. I counted five different forms, but there may be more forms less suited for charms, or perhaps even ones more suited."

"I couldn't spot much of anything under the wards, and I dropped my magical sight spell when he lifted them," the stern Transfiguration professor supplied a curious Albus, who nodded in understanding.

"Well, Filius?"

The addressed nodded and began explaining the different forms he had seen, from the gigantic wings to the eerie eyes. He finished up with the most surprising of all, however. "The final form I saw had... nothing. He was bouncing around like a maniac, but it was like he just made things happen, no magic involved. The feather lifted of its own accord, three feet high, no questions asked. I swear to Merlin, it was a miracle." Another silence fell over the room as its occupants tried to thing of an explanation, but eventually the quiet was broken by Pomona.

"Well, it certainly explains my lesson, at least," she supplied. The attention was on her in a heartbeat and she took a breath to steady her slight nervousness. "System seemed to fluctuate in skill throughout the lesson. I don't have any expertise in magical sight, but I could have sworn that the popsies grew faster than normal whenever he gained that accent..."

Now she'd gotten their attention. "Accent?" Filius squeaked in surprise. "I haven't heard any accent other than the usual from him! Is this from another form?"

Severus let a breath out through his nose, while Albus entertained himself by imagining smoke pouring from the man's nostrils. "Am I to believe that Potter-"

"Baker," Albus cut in with a well-hidden smirk.

"-that... Baker is to be left unpunished while he disrupts classes with falsified magical mishaps?"

"I do believe that sums up the situation nicely, Severus," the headmaster replied with his trademarked twinkle.

Four eyes twitched, all perfectly in sync. Ah, the wonders of unity.

* * *

**Man, this chapter's short. Also, it's been like years since last chapter!**

**...Yeah, not much to say this time. I just wanted to give you a look at the minds of the teachers, but I don't think I managed it well at all.**

**Oh, that comment about the itchy back? I'll give you a virtual cookie if you can guess which pony's hiding things, with your reasoning behind the choice. It's all right there, so guess away!**


	9. Potion Promise

**Harry Potter and My Little Pony are ruled over with an iron fist by Lord Faustimort.**

* * *

Severus Snape was not having a good day.

The past three classes had been filled with incompetents, with not a single being capable of brewing a simple boil removing potion. Fools, the lot of them.

The next class promised to be a similar waste of time. The first year classes always were; nobody seemed capable of understanding the subtle art of potion making until their late teens, at the very least. The last person he'd seen with the correct attitude was...

Well, he wasn't going to dwell on that. It seemed there was a special visitor for this class. Namely, one System Baker. Obviously, he'd be an utter disaster, especially if paired with Longbottom, as he seemed likely to be if what Minerva had said was true.

Severus was hoping that by allowing the two to pair together, he could maximize the likelihood that one pair in the group was comprised of decently attentative students by eliminating the two worst ones from the candidate pairs. It was risky, as he was almost certain that Longbottom alone could twist a cauldron into scrap metal, but that was what vanishing charms were for.

Checking the clock ticking away on the corner of his timetable, Severus prepared to meet the class that would most certainly burn Hogwarts to the ground, fulfilling the wishes of several thousand goblins if Professor Binns held an ounce of truth behind his deadly drone.

* * *

"Ah yes. Potter-"

"Baker," Rarity interrupted loudly, and Snape glared holes into the System.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn. Clearly, our new celebrity has nothing to learn from my Potions class. Tell me, 'Baker'," Snape made sure to layer as much sarcasm onto the word as possible, "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Fluttershy and Applejack gasped in synch while Twilight smiled, but the rest of the system raised an eyebrow.

_"Just how are we supposed to know that?" _Rainbow Dash whispered loudly. Twilight just sighed.

"The basis for a Drought of Living Death, sir," Twilight answered, and Snape gave the System an odd look.

"And, um, thankyousir," Fluttershy added in a mumble. Applejack patted her on the back as she stood stock still, amazed by her own outburst. The students stared, completely missing whatever Fluttershy had picked up on.

Snape's eyes widened almost imperceptably, before he nodded without acknowledging Fluttershy's thanks. "Correct, Baker. I am glad to see that at least one person has read the textbooks in advance. Perhaps there is hope... For a very select few of you." He turned towards a test tube and took it from its rack, scrutinizing the blue liquid inside. "You are here to learn the subtle art that is potion making. I do not expect you to understand the magic of a smoking, simmering cauldron, of brews that bewitch the mind and ensnare the soul. I can teach you how to bottle fame, to brew glory, and even put a stopper-" Snape twisted a cork onto the test tube in his hand, never taking his eyes off the enchanted students, "-on death. If you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

The System shivered in their seat as Snape's eyes locked with their own.

* * *

Had it failed? How?

_"-ere's so- -there..."_

Ah, so it had worked. He could hear the voice of Baker's mind...

_"But- -sn't even make sense..."_

_"HEY! Get outta our head!"_

_"Rainbow! We don't even know how he got here!"_

_"Who cares? He needs to get OUT!"_

Severus felt like he'd been hit by a train, as if Baker had suddenly thrown up an occlumency barrier and he'd run headfirst into it. He'd had the same problem with the headmaster at one point, but against a child? Inconcieveable.

* * *

_"Twilight, are you sure you read th' instructions right? I mean-"_

_"Yes, Applejack, for the last time! Why do you keep asking, anyway?"_

Applejack sighed and shrugged. "I_ don't rightly know, Twi. I just get this sorta feelin'. Wouldn't the pumpkin seeds work better if we crushed 'em?"_

Twilight tilted her head to the side. _"Well yes, I suppose that would speed up most reactions, and judging by the next few steps the reactions wouldn't be explosive or otherwise dangerous..."_

_"Great!" _Was Applejack's only word before she whipped the pestle and mortar out of the schoolbag and poured the seeds into the bowl. Neville opened his mouth to argue but Applejack shook her head and whispered, "I'll tell ya when we get outside."

By the end of the lesson, the System and Neville's potion was tied with Hermione and her redheaded partner's, earning each group five points for Gryffindor.

* * *

**I've been putting this one off because it really doesn't feel like a good chapter to me, but I'll post it anyway I guess. Just don't expect frequent updates from me, but I'm sure you've figured that out already.**


	10. Hands-on Defense

**I AM TOO LAZY TO TYPE UP A DISCLAIMER. JUST IMAGINE A FUNNY JOKE ACKNOWLEDGING THE CREATORS OF HARRY POTTER AND MLP. I APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.**

* * *

Defense Against the Dark Arts was quickly shaping up to be the System's least favourite lesson so far. Somehow it felt like their senses were constantly under attack, whether it was the garlicky smell, the blindingly purple turban, or the horrific black magic digging into the back of professor Quirrel's head like some grotesque parasite, the System could barely think straight from all the distractions.

The aforementioned black magic was worrying, too, but Twilight reasoned to the others that the headmaster most likely knew about it already. That didn't stop Dashie from being suspicious, Rarity from being disgusted, or Pinkie from wondering which balloons it would prefer.

Twilight had already finished the work for the lesson, so she turned to the front and was about to put her hand up asking what to do next when she looked directly at the black magic, something that she'd purposely avoided for the entire lesson.

Immediately a dark, jagged bolt like a shard of glass tore towards them, impacting their scar directly. Twilight didn't feel anything in particular, but the worried cries of the rest of the System made her worry about the state of their mindscape.

_'AJ, take my place!'_ She urged, and AJ complied, letting her slide back into the mental realm. The source of the disturbance was rather obvious, as a pitch darkness covered half of the street. The others were already at the edge of the blackness, Pinkie and Dashie throwing all manner of objects in while Fluttershy and Rarity watched with bated breath. _'Okay, I have an idea, but I'll probably be out of commission for a little while afterward,' _she said.

Rarity shook her head. _'We'll need you to keep our grades up so nopony thinks anything's weong with us. I, on the other hand, don't have any urgent jobs to do. I should go, if anyone. Just tell me what to expect and I'll figure something out.'_

Unwilling to argue in such a potentially dire situation, Twilight nodded reluctantly. _'Okay, first off, the darkness won't destroy anything outright, but it will most likely hurt severely and spending too much time inside may begin to affect your representation. That shouldn't happen for a while, though, as a shift in your representation can only be caused by extreme changes to your mental state, in this case through extreme paim. There should be some sort of dark artifact in the centre of the darkness, which you will need to physically enclose in order to remove that outside influence from it. I have some theories, but those are hardly relevent right now so please be quick?'_

Rarity smiled back at her, wincing a little as she tapped her hoof into the darkness. _'I can assure you, darling, that I will be absolutely fine. Now go and relieve AppleJack of her duty, because knowing her, she's already grown fidgety.'_

_'Thanks, Rarity,' _Twilight whispered, and took over the System's reigns as Rarity cantered through the void, already visibly straining.

* * *

The end of the lesson came as a relief. Rarity had made it through the darkness with very little harm, and Fluttershy estimated her full recovery at a day or two. Rarity's method of sealing the artifact was to put it in a box, and while that held up for the duration of the lesson, Twilight hadn't wanted to take any risks and had used the vast majority of her sealing spells, only skipping a few that were incompatible, and also placed it in a much stronger physical container. Only then did she feel safe in leaving it alone.

At dinner that day, Dashie had the brilliant idea of looking directly at the back of Quirrel's head again, and while it was probably the most stupid idea she could possibly have at the time, it did prove that without the artifact out in the open in the mindscape, the black magic didn't lash out at them at all.

Fluttershy noticed that Neville, who sat next to her, was looking rather green. She could tell it wasn't an illness, so she took over and asked_,_ "What's wrong?"

Neville sighed, dropping his hands to his sides and resting his chin on the table_. _"We have flying lessons tomorrow," he moaned, and Fluttershy winced in understanding even as Dashie cheered. She wasn't afraid of flying, as she knew that Dashie would never let anything happen to them, but she wouldn't be able to trust herself to fly.

"Have you ever flown before?" she asked as a sudden suspicion struck her. Neville shook his head mournfully and she sighed. Of course nobody would trust him with a broom, and without that practise, he'd be entirely out of his depth. "Just stand next to me, and I'll see if I can help you, if that's okay." He nodded, looking grateful and slightly less terrified, and Fluttershy smiled and turned back to her dinner.

_'Twilight, could you maybe look to see which broom would be the most stable so Neville can use it tomorrow?'_

* * *

This time, it was Severus who entered the room last. It was almost a curse; as surely as the Defense teacher would be removed within the year, at least one head of house, or even Dumbledore himself, was late to every single meeting.

Thos time though, Albus could barely keep his jaw from dropping. The Potions teacher looked almost pleased! His hair, having never changed from its slightly greasy long slick for as long as anyone could remember, was cut short, neat and healthy, with no trace of grease at all. His face looked a little less tight than usual, and his robes had entirely lost their sense of malice and foreboding, and didn't even billow in some unseen wind.

Overall, he hadn't changed much at all, but what had changed made him feel like an entirely different man.

"Would anyone like a sherbet lemon?" Albus asked, and the man hesitated at the question for the first time, before apparently deciding against it much to Albus' chagrin.

"What happened to you?" Minerva blurted, and the other heads of houses could only nod, dumbfounded.

Severus sat down heavily. "Baker happened," he said with no hint of displeasure or any emotion, really. "Quite a remarkable student, I might add."

"You realise that I would like a report?" Albus prompted and Severus nodded.

"Of course, headmaster. I began my class by marking everybody off on the register. When I got to Baker's name, I addressed him as Potter, and he quite rightfully corrected me. I took points - which I have since reversed," he told a bristling Minerva, who slumped in shock before nodding weakly as he continued. "and asked him, 'What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?'"

"But that's NEWT level!" Pomona interrupted, the only one apart from Severus and Albus to have taken NEWT Potions. "Would you have taken points if he didn't know?"

Severus smirked, but it looked different to his usual ones. "I would not have," he denied, "but I was not able to either way, as he answered it perfectly."

"But then why-" Pomona stopped dead as her eyes went unfocussed, before she rounded on him, eyes wide. "You?"

"I," he confirmed. "The meanings associated with different flowers corresponds closely to their use in Potions, as magic itself has taken those meanings and applied them to the plants. Hence why together with snapdragon buds and stabilisers, they create the Drought of Living Death."

Filius nodded in sudden understanding, then said for Minerva's sake, "Asphodel is a lily meaning 'My regrets follow you to the grave'. Wormwood means 'Absence' and bitter sorrow."

"So asking a question involving both of them could be taken to mean, 'My sorrow and regret of Lily's absence will follow you to the grave'," Minerva put together. "I assume that snapdragons symbolise falsehood or deception?"

"The latter," Albus supplied, intrigued. "Severus, what was Mr Baker's reaction to the question?"

"He answered it perfectly, as I stated, then thanked me after a moment of thought," the changed teacher stated. "I was unable to believe that they realised, so I cast a weak Legilimency to ensure that they weren't doing the same to me." The head of Gryffindor sputtered about privacy, but Severus ignored her. "It was simply a surface thought scan, but I realised something very interesting."

"And what might that be?" Minerva grumbled, still glaring at him. "Is that what got you to change your style so much?"

"No, that was a realisation on my part." Severus paused for dramatic effect. "System Baker has no surface thoughts."

Several cries of "_WHAT?_" rung out through the room. Even Albus joined in, but nobody noticed in the shock. Such a thing was supposed to be entirely impossible, and while System had proven that impossible was a relative term, this was quite possibly the most shocking news so far.

"Instead of simply hearing or seeing Baker's thoughts, I was pulled directly into his mind. He didn't have memories there, Albus," he addressed the headmaster directly. "I was given a mental representation of my physical form for all of four seconds, before I was discovered by more than one other such representations, and forced out of his mind altogether. Every voice that I heard while in his mind belonged to an unfamiliar female, although it was only through my pensieve that I discovered this fact as I was too thrown at the time."

There was silence for a full minute as everyone tried to process the new information, with little success. Finally, Filius asked, "What did you realise that made you change so much?"

There was a pause as Severus pondered for a moment. "I realised that I want to teach."

* * *

**HOLY MOTHER OF BUTTS IT'S ALIVE! YOUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED!**

**This chapter's still short, but I'm hoping to increase the length over time. Sorry for the exceptionally long hiatus, I have no excuse.**

**Next time, Flying lessons!**

**(I've also realised that apparently Flitwick changed his teaching plan, since in this fic he taught Wingardium Leviosa before Halloween. Maybe it'll be a recap lesson, or maybe I'll just figure out an alternative.)**


	11. Controlled Takeoff

**It's insane how satisfying it is to watch my viewer count shoot up, but I need to get to work writing!**

* * *

The System awoke bright and early the next morning, and Twilight headed down for breakfast with her head in a book as had quickly become custom. Today it was a book on identifying different types of dark magic, since she was wondering just how dangerous the cloak of darkness surrounding Quirrel was. The fact that it hadn't been listed in the Minor Maladies and Parasites didn't do anything to quell her fears.

Feeling a pulse of magic but unable to dodge it, Twilight just threw up a silent, invisible shield to protect them. Dashie and AJ jumped to attention too, ready to take control if they needed to.

Unfortunately, the spell was aimed for the prosthetic rather than the System themself, and the tip of the peg-leg was blasted off, leaving a jagged edge in its place and limiting them to one leg for support.

Able to simply magic the peg-leg back together, Twilight turned in mild annoyance to the perpetrator, before finding herself in the back seat as Dashie took over.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked. "Because you just gave me a cutting edge for when I kick your teeth in."

Malfoy smirked from a hilariously long distance away, although he still paled a little. "What's the matter, Baker? Missing something?"

Twilight hurriedly took control again as Dashie complained, before waving her wand and muttering some nonsense under her breath to fool any onlookers. The tip of the leg jumped back into place, resealing itself with a thought. "I don't think so, why? Should I be?"

Then she walked towards the hall, wondering why Malfoy hadn't tried something like this sooner. Dashie was still sore over it, but she vowed to outfly him in the flying lessons later that day in retribution.

* * *

Lunchtime had ended, and the first year Gryffindors and Slytherins were all stood on the quidditch pitch for their first lesson. True to the Fluttershy's word, Twilight found the most stable broomstick of the bunch, and took the one next to it, leaving Neville with the best possible broom for learning how to fly.

The most stable broom was on the end, leaving Twilight with only one choice unless she wanted to rouse suspicion by rearranging the brooms. That particular broom was possibly one of the most unsafe magical objects she'd ever seen, but Dashie relished the challenge.

Once everyone was lined up, Madam Hooch blew her whistle.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she asked the few students not beside a broom. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up!"

After a moment of confusion, Neville hurried towards the System, picking the right broom as Twilight put up a notice-me-not on the others. He smiled at them and Fluttershy smiled back, but Dashie seized control and began tapping their working foot in barely contained impatience.

"Stick your right hand - or left, if you're left handed - and say 'Up!'" Madam Hooch instructed.

"Up!" the class cried, and a few things happened. Some broomsticks flopped feebly on the floor. A few, such as Malfoy's, leapt straight into their masters' hands. Surprisingly, Neville's broom bounced up, stopped barely underneath his hand, and dropped back to hover at around half the height it had initially gained.

There was also a sickening crack as Dashie's broom smacked into her hand, and she yelped. It wasn't nearly as bad as some of the injuries she and AJ had taken for the team, but it still smarted and Hooch had immediately turned towards her and assessed the situation, hurrying over to them and feeling the bones in their right arm.

"Broken wrist," she muttered. "Come on, let's get you to the hospital wing..."

She grabbed the System's shoulders and tried to gently guide them off the field, but Dashie was having none of that and leaned backwards, digging her heels into the ground. "Come on, it isn't that bad," she whined, "and I've been waiting literally months for this, so I'm not just going to throw my only chance away!"

"Be that as it may-" Hooch began, but Twilight cut her off.

"I can just go to the hospital wing after the lesson's over," she reasoned. Then she cast another notice-me-not - those were becoming more common nowdays - and continued in a lower voice, "Besides, I said I'd help Neville with flying to give him a confidence boost. And are you really going to just leave a bunch of immature students alone with thirty potentially dangerous magical objects?"

Hooch sighed emphatically. "I suppose that was a misjudgement on my part," she conceded. "However, it would be difficult to fly one-handed-"

"Good, maybe then I won't hopelessly outclass everyone else," Dashie grinned. "Bring on the challenge, I say!"

Hooch was silent for a moment, before she muttered something under her breath about 'given their parentage', and 'might actually'. Finally, she turned to them. "Fine, but if it becomes too much, come down immediately, you hear?"

Dashie nodded eagerly and Twilight pulled down the notice-me-not as she rejoined the group. Most of them had gotten their broomsticks to jump to their hands by now, and Neville excitedly informed them that he'd gotten it second try, while even some of the experienced flyers had taken at least four. Fluttershy congratulated him heartily, if quietly, and Dashie looked around for her own broom before she realised that it was still in her hand.

After the final student (Hermione Granger, much to her embarrassment) had gotten their broomstick into their hand, Madam Hooch showed them all how to sit properly on a broomstick, and told them to do the same.

_'Why can't we just fly already?' _the pegasus asked of the rest of the System, and most of them just shrugged.

_'Just remember that you probably won't be allowed to fly anymore if you take off early,' _Twilight warned her, and she nodded in the real world. Thankfully, nobody noticed as they were engrossed in watching Madam Hooch correct their classmates. The Gryffindors seemed particularly pleased when Malfoy was told that he'd been sitting wrong for years. Rarity, mostly recovered from the Quirrel incident but still with achy hooves and a missing voice, huffed her disdain as the boy's name came up again. He'd rubbed her in a way that had brought out a strange sense of deja-vu and that annoyed her to no end.

Finally, Hooch came over to the final two. She nodded in approval at Dashie's altered stance, designed to put her centre of balance to the left so she could still steer properly with her left hand.

She made a few minor adjustments to Neville's hand positions, but apparently remembered Twilight's words and asked him if this was his first time riding a broom, to which he nodded reluctantly.

"Very good for beginners, both of you," she told them, then headed back to the front. "Now, when I blow my whistle, kick off from the ground, hard as you can. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly." Neville seemed like he was about to panic but Fluttershy tapped his shoulder and smile again, which calmed him down. "Three, two, one..."

A shrill whistled blew through the air and thirty students kicked off the ground. A few got cold feet and lowered their broomsticks almost immediately. One brown-haired Slytherin had paid such attention to their stance that they'd risen too quickly, panicked, and dropped to the ground a little too fast. They didn't seem hurt.

After five seconds, only around half the class was in the air. Hermione Granger had kept the correct stance and while she was shivering in fear, she wore a grim face of concentration until they reached six feet in the air, after which she bowed out to Hooch's frank relief for the usually stubborn girl.

By this time there was still an almost equal number of Slytherin and Gryffindor students in the air. This included a smug Malfoy; his two lackeys, who seemed surprisingly at ease in the air; a few Slytherin girls that none of the System had met; Ronald Weasley, who seemed to be competing with Malfoy; Neville; and the System.

Neville looked _very _pale, but he was grinning in a way that Dashie could feel on her own face, and almost began to look comfortable. For Dashie's part, her broom was vibrating slightly under her, and it took all her concentration to stop it careening off course, taking the System with it.

Hooch was holding onto her own broomstick one-handed, her wand in her other hand and the whistle to her lips. She looked pale and kept stealing glances at the System's shivering broomstick. After a particularly violent shudder, she motioned downward with her wand, blowing her whistle softly to catch their attention without making them jump.

They were back down to fifteen feet when a twang echoed through the grounds and the System's broom gave out completely. AJ came out immediately, intent on absorbing the incoming pain, but Pinkie shoved her out of the way, and gasped loudly about a foot from the ground.

Somehow she stopped dead in mid air for the duration of her gasp, then fell the rest of the way into the grass, suffering no worse than a winding. She leapt back to her feet, grinning like a loon. "That was fun! I wanna do it again!"

The students in the air landed awkwardly, and a thoroughly shaken Madam Hooch sped over to the System. "Are you alright, Baker?" she asked, and Pinkie bobbed her head.

"I'm even better than okay, Ma'am!" She saluted, bouncing on her toes, before inexplicably pulling the broomstick out from behind her back. Several students glanced at where it had been lying just a moment ago, to find only a squashed patch of grass as evidence that it had been there. "I don't think I can say the same for McFlighty, though..."

Madam Hooch frowned at the troublesome wooden stick as she took it, then lobbed it in the air, where it simply dropped like a rock and landed back in her hands. She groaned. "Cushioning charm wore off," she muttered. "Must've tangled the other enchantments. Cleansweep Fives always were temperamental in that respect... Should've seen it before..." She sighed, throwing the broom aside. "Baker, go and get another broom from the pile. Now," she addressed the rest of the class, "that was just a taster for you all. Whoever thinks that they can't handle any more, put your broom back on the pile and take a seat in the stands. No need to be embarrassed, there's nothing wrong with it..."

Several students, most likely more than usual thanks to the System's broom's failure, dropped their broomsticks back onto the pile. Hermione Granger was one of them, but curiously enough, Neville kept his broom at his side, a happy grin on his face as Dashie rejoined him with a much safer and faster broom, at least according to Twilight.

"Right, a ten minute break while I organise groups and you all get over that little shock, and we'll be back in the air," Hooch called to those who hadn't taken their seats in the stands. Dashie growled in frustration.

* * *

A large chunk of the lesson from that point was similar, Madam Hooch instructing them all to do exactly as she did to test their control. They went forwards, backwards, strafed and turned, and even gone over a few rolls. Dashie was thoroughly bored by the end of it.

Finally they came to the more interesting part: Quidditch. Hooch had put them into pairs and given them a quaffle each. The System was obviously paired with Neville, who had slowly gotten so used to a broom that he surprised himself by it. They spent much of that half-hour making more and more ridiculous passes to each other. That had ended when Neville had thrown it straight towards the ground and Dashie had barely caught it as their foot-and-peg combo brushed against the trimmed grass. Hooch had been furious with both of them, and made them sit in time out until the next exercise.

Said next exercise turned out to involve the bludgers - they were to take one bludger and two bats per group, and practise aiming for their partner while keeping themselves out of the way of both the bat and the ball. With very little strength behind their body, Dashie couldn't hit the bludger very hard, but Neville could absolutely pelt it into them. Even with such good reflexes as hers, Dashie was hard pressed to avoid them, and once Neville figured out how to put spin on the ball and move to intercept it far quicker than he had previously, the bludger was consistently grazing their robes.

That session ended after only half an hour, but it was a fun half-hour all the same. The next one promised to be even better, as it involved catching a little golden ball called a snitch. Hooch had charmed each snitch to a different colour, then given one to each team and had them race to get their snitch. Dashie swore that she'd specifically given them the green one so that it blended with the grass.

Of course, she didn't rule out nabbing other coloured snitches, so instead of trailing leisurely after the green snitch, she darted in an erratic pattern, snatching up red, yellow and silver snitches, then releasing them whenever she felt like it. Once Neville caught wind, he too began playing the impromptu game, snickering as he caught Malfoy and Crabbe's bright purple snitch.

The end of that exercise also marked the end of the quidditch lesson, and Dashie headed back to the castle with Neville in tow, already making plans to pilfer two school brooms, two beater's bats and a bludger in the near future.

* * *

**I think I'm getting into the swing of things! It was so much fun to write Neville as someone good at Quidditch. My headcanon is that Neville got a broken broom, and the bad outcome of his first flight gave him a fear of flying. Give him a better broom before he's scarred for life and he actually does well.**

**You may have noticed different outcomes beginning to pop up already, like Malfoy not having stolen Neville's remembrall, which means that they won't end up being set up for a midnight meeting with Filch, and also that Dashie isn't getting onto the team just yet. They also won't be meeting Fluffy for a while. Just an observation.**

**Next time: Halloween! (courtesy of timeskip)**


	12. Plans Aplenty

**Disclaimer: Okay, so Halloween isn't this chapter. Whatever. Just means I get to flesh out some characters more.**

* * *

Potions lessons for the end of the week came as a huge surprise to everyone. Professor Snape the Giant Bat had been inexplicably replaced by professor Snape the... Ordinary Teacher. The hatred and disgust that once hung about him had all but vanished, and while he still looked down his nose at some students, the identities of those students were completely different.

"Malfoy, silence," he ordered, and the pale Slytherin glared at him, embarrassed and confused. He ignored it in favour of addressing the rest of the class. "Today, we will be making a Cure for Boils. Can anyone tell me the key ingredients of such a potion?" After the last lesson, both Hermione and System were wary of raising their hands, but they did so against their better judgement. "Granger?"

"The main ingredients of the Cure for Boils are horned slugs and porcupine quills, in a two-to-one ratio," Hermione quoted immediately, and Snape nodded.

"Five points for Gryffindor," he said to universal incredulity. "Those are indeed the key ingredients, as stated by One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. However..." he stood at the ingredients cupboard, pulled out a jar and waved his wand over it, and it vanished into thin-air. "We seem to be missing the horned slugs. Fortunately, it is entirely possible to create the same potion in a number of different manners, albeit with different intensities and side-effects. The true hardship of Potions is not to create a potion that does as you wish it to. It is creating one that will not kill you in the process. Finding different methods to create the same effects will become an invaluable skill in the art of potion-making."

He turned back to the class, the jar holding the porcupine fangs in his hand, before he vanished that one too. "This will be a paired project spanning three sessions. Today's session will involve planning the potion out, while monday's double lesson will be the actual creation. You goal is simple: create a Cure for Boils without either porcupine quills or horned slugs, and attempt to minimise the side-effects. You may use your copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi for assistance. At the end of this lesson, each pair will be expected to hand in a plan of action detailing the risks that each ingredient will pose, and the counters for those risks. However, I will accept plans handed in any sooner than sunday noon, as long as a sufficient explanation is given. You may begin."

* * *

As it turned out, Neville was a genius at the planned aspect of Potions, thanks to his innate knowledge of Herbology. Without the menacing presence of Snape, AJ was quickly drawn into a conversation with him, both bouncing ideas off one another as Twilight listened in rapt attention.

"...So we add the nettles just before the yarrow?"

"No, Ah reckon that'd affect it too much, n' destabilise the whole thing. Try before that."

"Before the _snake fangs_?" Neville asked pointedly.

"Right. Ah see your point. That'd explode."

"Violently."

"So mix the yarrow... No, mix the nettles in on high heat to stabilise that-"

"-and then add the yarrow?" Neville nodded. "I think that would work... it'd remove the soothing effect of the nettles, but also the venom..."

"And the yarrow would cure it," AJ finished happily. "But what if we added more nettles later on, and used wasp venom to neutralise the nettles?"

"That could work, but we'd need to do that separately... Why not just put the nettles in once, though?"

"'Cause then the potion would-"

"Destabilise, right, of course..."

Their conversation continued on. They both knew that the System would be the one to actually make the potion this time, but Neville had resolved to help as much as possible even during the practical. The fact that Twilight told him she could just stick it to the table so he couldn't knock it over helped.

* * *

Albus smiled as Severus took the other seat in his office, looking more worn-out than usual, but also very pleased. "I take it that you had a good first day of 'teaching'?" he asked, emphasising the last word as if he was honest, Severus hadn't been doing much teaching previously.

Severus took a moment to compose himself before answering, crushing down the smile that had threatened to break onto his face. He still had standards, after all. "Today's lessons went extremely well, Albus. The effects of the changes to my lessons were immediate. The majority of my Slytherins stopped antagonising the other houses as they realised that I would not stand for it. Students became more respectful of me, although my... unfavourable reputation has done nothing to help in that regard. A few unlikely students moved higher in the class in response to the change in lesson plans-"

"Unlikely?" Albus interrupted, and the Potions professor nodded.

"Such as the Weasley twins, Neville Longbottom and System Baker."

Albus leaned forward in his chair, eyes twinkling, but was mildly annoyed when Severus didn't react. "And I would assume that you would like to speak of young Mr Baker?"

"In a manner," he replied. "He seems to have a profound effect on those he meets-"

"With exhibit A sitting before me, I am sure," Albus nodded. Severus copied him absently.

"It's as if he has a personality that can match anyone perfectly and change them for the better," he said. "Neville Longbottom, whom at the beginning of the year seemed uncoordinated, magically ungifted and extremely lacking in self-confidence, has shown recent improvement in all three areas, and that is with his father's wand, which I doubt is anywhere close to suitable for him. In fact, I'm thinking of placing the students into groups of three for their next project, and grouping the Granger girl with them. Hopefully they can begin showing her to think outside the box rather than quoting directly from textbooks..."

Albus hummed in acknowledgement, thinking back to what he'd heard of the girl. "An excellent student for sure, but not one with the correct mindset for life beyond school, or even the higher years," he said. "Several other professors have come to me begging to move her up, but I have observed her and refused them on those grounds. Perhaps you could help to explain?"

"I shall do my best," Severus replied.

"I trust you have been awarding and abducting points effectively?"

"Five points for short, correct answers, no points for incorrect ones, ten points off and a warning for fifty and detention for sabotage," Severus rattled off. "While I previously wouldn't have dreamed to be handling points so excessively, it has done wonders for the attentativeness of my students. I shall have to thank Filius for the pointers, next time I see him."

"And what of the project that you mentioned?" Albus pressed.

"This time it was a simple Cure for Boils, for all years. The catch is that the horned slugs and porcupine quills of the conventional recipe are unavailable..."

"So the students' task is to plan and prepare a Cure for Boils from scratch without those ingredients. Ingenious. Have you collected in the plans and reviewed them?"

"I have for the majority, although I gave students until sunday noon to hand them in, as long as they give a proper explanation. Some have taken me up on this, but once again, the most interesting of those who have is the partnership of Baker and Longbottom. I checked on all groups throughout their lessons, and they had a working Cure within the lesson. They gave me their plan an hour later, telling me that they were attempting to minimise side-effects and maximise effectiveness as far as possible."

"And?" Albus asked, sensing that there was something _big_ afoot.

"They created a plan for a potion that would work within minutes, had no side effects aside from healing mild cuts and scratches, used only seven ingredients, and had a difficulty of twelve on the Jadis scale. Not quite up there with such brews as Polyjuice in terms of difficulty, but enough that I considered forbidding them from attempting it."

Albus scratched his beard in thought, leaning back in his chair. "How does the potion compare to its official variations?"

"It is slightly less effective than the one found in Moste Potente Potions, and doesn't contain any effects to counter magic resistance, but the ingredients it uses are far more common and for the most part found in the greenhouses. Both Baker and Longbottom seem to have a way with plants, and their discussions play out in such a way that they often correct each other on details that the other misses. Longbottom seems to have a better grasp on the theory, while Baker thinks outside the box more and works better in the practicals. Putting them together was at first an attempt to minimise the failures of students, as I had assumed that both Baker and Longbottom would ruin the potion that they worked on, so if I put them together, they would ruin only one potion between them. However, I do not regret that decision, as shallow as my assumptions may have been."

"Yes, it was a lucky choice, I suppose... Are there any other groups that had surprising results in the theory?"

"Crabbe and Goyle, while unable to move within a foot of a cauldron without knocking it over, came up with some surprisingly good conclusions, and have the plan which is the simplest, and while only mildly effective, has absolutely no side-effects, and is by far the easiest to brew, making it the second-best plan overall in the first year. While the majority of upper-year students seemed distracted by my change and struggled to string together a proper potion, Fred and George Weasley created one specifically designed to have no side-effects other than to colour one eye red and the other gold for a period of ten minutes, proving their talent without a doubt.

On the opposite end of the scale, Hermione Granger attempted to edit a textbook recipe, and struggled to associate each ingredient and action with its effects, ultimately wasting two thirds of the lesson and leaving herself and Ronald Weasley, who hadn't even attempted to give input, with a plan that had moderate effectiveness but also a comparatively large number of side-effects, which she seemed to realise and was frustrated by. Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, attempted a recipe which involved the unavailable ingredients, and was immediately disqualified."

"Very good, for your first proper teaching session," Albus assured him. "You seem to have everything under control, so please keep up the good work and keep me updated on the promising students. Goodnight." Severus nodded, and got up to leave as quickly as he entered, leaving a list of grades behind on the desk.

Albus looked them over, a smile spreading onto his face as he went over the conversation. Talking with this Severus and the previous Severus had been like night and day, and he was glad to see how excited Severus had gotten now that he had opened his eyes and seen his students as more than just troublemakers and means to an end.

Although Lucius may be a little unhappy about the equal treatment of his son. Albus was sure that Severus could handle that.

* * *

News of professor Snape's new disposition spread like wildfire after the first- and third-year lessons, and the fact that he sat in his usual place at the table, hair short and conversing with a bemused head of Gryffindor only served to bolster the rumours.

_'I wonder what happened to him,' _Twilight absently commented. _'He seemed completely different right up until he got into our mindscape.'_

Dashie laughed. _'Well duh! We're just that awesome! See friendship like this and you never see anything the same again!'_

_'He was in here for four seconds.'_

_'I can clear the sky faster than that, it doesn't mean anything,' _the pegasus replied, speeding past barely under mach 1.

Twilight grimaced. _'Are you _still _trying to break the sound barrier? The fact that there's __one in here doesn't mean you should break it! Who knows what kind of impact it could have on our mental health?'_

_'If'n y'all are done,'_ AJ said from the pilot's seat, making Twilight jump and Dashie bounce off the sound barrier into the floor, _'Ah'm trying to speak with Neville, which ain't easy with you blabbering in the back of our mind. Come to the front if y'all wanna talk.'_

_'Sorry, AJ,' _Twilight blushed, and they both turned their attention outwards, to join the rest of the System. _'Any news?'_

_'Only that Fluttershy's quietly contemplating telling Neville our secret,' _Rarity sniffed. _'I agree to an extent, but there's just so much that could go wrong...'_

_'He's our friend, and I know that he'd never tell anyone-'_

_'And I'm as certain of that as you are, but we still don't know what wizard magic can do! For all we know, wizards can rummage through your mind and simply pull information out of you, and while we'd be more protected because of our condition, we can't take any chances by putting that information somewhere where other people can get to it.'_

Twilight tapped her hoof on the ground three times, a universal sign for everypony to listen in. They all turned to face her immediately, AJ listening in from her place in control, giving a distinct feeling of annoyance, and Dashie focussing outward to join them as Twilight had done.

_'This is just a quick one, but I read that wizards do in fact have a way to read minds. However,' _she raised her voice over the four others, Pinkie's curiously absent, _'It's good that I came across it because I now know how difficult it is, how it works, and more importantly, how to protect against it.'_

_'I'm sensing a but,' _Dashie interjected, rolling her eyes, and Twilight nodded in agreement.

_'There is a but, and a big one. And grow up, Rainbow Dash, that isn't even a pun that could be made in the equestrian language,'_ she told the snickering pegasus. _'The__ but is that I seriously doubt that we can make any use of the majority of defenses against legilimency, which include 'Clearing your mind' and 'Putting defenses around your memories'.'_

AJ snorted, and they all froze. "Are you okay, System?" came Neville's voice, and AJ nodded.

"Ah'm just fine, sugarcube, just remembered something is all," she replied, and while a few heads still turned, the majority of Gryffindors at the table had gotten used to the System's oddities and didn't pay much attention to the accent or the nickname. Although some people snickered, for a reason that only Twilight and Rarity knew, and that they refused to divulge to the others, Twilight looking mortified and Rarity somewhat ill.

_'If anypony's wondering, I think we should tell Neville,' _Dashie said, and they turned to her, incredulous. _'What? He's the best friend we've ever had, and it's best that we tell him before he figures it out so that he won't tell anyone.'_

_'I'd have thought that you'd be suspicious.'_

_'Pft, suspicious of _Neville_? He's eleven years old, Twilight.'_

_'So are we.'_

_'Yeah but that's different,' _Dashie replied dismissively. _'There's six of us, so that makes us like, seventy years old in total!'_

_'Honestly, Rainbow Dash,' _Twilight said with a groan. _'By your logic, we'd be sixty-six, not seventy. Also, we were 'born', for lack of a better term, only a year and a bit ago, so we'd only be around ten in total. And collective age doesn't work by just adding ages together, or that would make a group of sixty one-year-olds more knowledgeable than one fifty-year-old. Age works based on what you've experienced, and as we haven't experienced much compared to most humans, we aren't even old mentally.'_

_'Bah, words. Anyway, there also the fact that he's _Neville_! Trying to suspect him is like trying to eat rocks-'_

_'Or like trying to fly at mach 1,' _Applejack supplied drolly. _'Just shouldn't be done, but somepony's gonna try it anyways.' _When Dashie glared at the sky, having no real direction to look as she was still controlling the System, she chuckled. _'Ah do agree with y'all, though. Neville's trustworthy as any of us.'_

_'We'd need to teach him occlumency though,'_ Twilight insisted, _'and while I would be perfectly willing to teach him, there's the fact that we'd need to come up with a good reason, and we can't learn it ourself, so I'd have no way to teach him!'_

_'But we could find out right?' _Fluttershy reasoned. _'We do have a lot of books that we haven't read yet... A-and if they don't have anything in them, we could ask to go to the restricted section, couldn't we? We don't have to decide straight away, of course, we could wait until we're completely sure, but can you please think about it?'_

Twilight took one look at Fluttershy's wide, tear-filled eyes, and felt her resolve crumble to dust. _'Fine, we'll do it as long as the risks are minimal.'_

_'Oh, thank you, Twilight!' _Fluttershy cheered quietly, and Twilight just grumbled under her breath.

* * *

**DING!**

**That was the sound of a piping hot chapter, straight from the storyline microwave. And just like a meal from a regular microwave, it's a little soggy and barely edible, but it's still food! Or writing. Whatever, try eating it if you didn't like reading it.**

**I feel like I went off track somewhere.**

**Next chapter: Halloween! Possibly. Probably not. It seems to just get further away with each new chapter.**


	13. A Lesson in Patience

**I AM NOT STEALING ANYTHING AND HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST SUCH A THING WHAT NONONO THERE'S NOTHING BEHIND MY BACK WHAT ARE YOU-**

* * *

The weekend was passed through a combination of reading, discussing various subjects with Neville, and secretly practicing flying. The actual quidditch balls were hidden far better than the brooms were, and none of the friends had figured out where they were hidden, but Neville had shown them a rather useless gift from his grandmother, a remembrall, and had suggested that they just play catch with it.

Twilight and Rarity had both been reading the same books, each trying to ensure that the other didn't miss any important details, but they still hadn't found any instructions on legilimency, and the ones on occlumency were useless to them, as someone with legilimency was neeeded to put their mind under threat in the first place. Rarity had guessed that the books detailing legilimency would be in the restricted section, and Twilight had grudgingly agreed, so until they could get a pass for that area, telling Neville about themselves was a no-go, much to the entire System's dismay.

Well, almost the entire System; Pinkie had vanished entirely, and nopony could make heads or tails of where she could have gone. They decided not to let it bother them, though, as she would show herself when and where she wanted. That was just how Pinkie was.

Finally, it was monday and time for the plans of the previous Potions lesson to come to fruition.

Most of the lesson went as expected. Neville stayed away from the cauldron, but prepared the majority of the plant-based ingredients. Applejack helped in that regard, while Twilight dealt with the cauldron, following the notes that AJ had made to a tee and checking back with her for anything that was unclear. Really, it was surprising how well Neville meshed with the System, almost like he was one of them himself, and it strengthened their resolve to tell him their secret.

After the fiasco of their first lesson, they were still avoiding Snape's eyes, as they had no desire to let him into their mindscape again. As much as he acted like he didn't in any way want to go there again, it was better safe than sorry.

Finally, arms weak and fingers aching more than they would care to admit, Twilight and AJ led the way out of the dungeons, and the conversation with Neville.

The combination of accents was something to be admired.

* * *

Somehow, the flying lesson had seemed to the System like a one-time thing, but they, and Dashie especially, were very glad that it wasn't. In fact, the lessons were scheduled for every thursday afternoon, as an extra class that students weren't required to take.

Dashie and Neville said "Up!" together this time, and no wrists were broken by brooms, much to everyone's relief. Most of the remaining students got their brooms into their hands on the first try, but one Slytherin boy had to say it again.

Twilight could feel that that broomstick was a particularly weak one, and with Rarity's prompting, she shot her magic forwards and undid the vast majority of the charms on the broom, to ensure that it wouldn't get off the ground before breaking as theirs had done.

The boy seemed annoyed as the broom still didn't respond to his call, and Madam Hooch bustled over, recognising him as one of the better flyers from the previous week. Like last week, she threw the broom in the air, and like last week it put up no resistance to gravity and landed back in her hands.

Then she snapped it over her knee, and Twilight enhanced their hearing enough to catch mutterings about price cuts and cushioning charms.

"Grab a new broom, Nott, and let's get up in the air. Chop chop!"

Five minutes later, they were all flying aimlessly around the small pitch, warming up before their first task. Madam Hooch blew her whistle, and all except Malfoy and Ron Weasley came to a dead stop. The remainder continued glaring at each other, but slowed down quickly enough that they weren't taken note of.

"Alright, for the first exercise today, you'll be in the same groups as you were last week, so pair up." They did, and she nodded. "Now, when I call your names, come down to the centre of the pitch with me. Remember those snitches from last week? Those were just the practice ones. Now you'll be fighting to catch a Hogwarts grade one, and whoever catches theirs will get the chance to capture and keep a professional snitch!"

Dashie and Neville looked thoughtfully at each other. Both knew that Dashie was the best seeker out of either of them, but both were willing to try their hardest, if only to appease the other.

The commotion died down after a good twenty seconds before Hooch continued. "The rules are as such: Each pair will have ten minutes to find their snitch. The one to capture the snitch will move up to the next challenge. If nobody in a pair captures it within the time limit, nobody in that pair moves up. There will be no malicious physical contact, and _I _will be the judge of that. Malfoy and Crabbe, you're up first."

Malfoy returned with his prize quickly; as good as Crabbe was on a broom, his stocky body had to make him less maneuverable than the slim blonde. Dashie jokingly blamed it on Malfoy's golden locks confusing Crabbe, and she and Neville shared a laugh over that. After that were several longer matches between groups of Slytherins and Gryffindors (though never one of each), which were mostly boring to look at, so by the time their names were called, both Dashie and Neville were anxious to get going.

They touched down gently next to Madam Hooch, earning them approving looks, and waited for her to release the snitch.

"On my whistle, kick off and begin. The snitch is unable to to leave the pitch, understand?" At their nods, she opened her gloved hands and a golden ball shot out, circling them both before seeming to vanish into thin air. The whistle sounded, and they were both in the air, adrenaline coursing through them.

They sped around the pitch for five minutes, before Neville spotted something and dove. Dashie took the initiative and paced him perfectly, realising almost too late that he was bluffing and pulling up barely in time, hurriedly crossing her legs on top of the broom's handle as the back quite literally swept the floor.

Several students gasped at the close call, but Neville hadn't admired his handiwork and was already back in the air, searching for the glint of gold that Dashie could _see_-

She was off in an instant, Neville on her tail as she swerved towards the stands. There was a tear in the fabric at the Gryffindor side, and the snitch conveniently took that place to hide. Before Hooch could so much as blow her whistle, they were dodging wooden beams and panels, their way barely lit in house colours as the sunlight from outside travelled through the cloth.

After several tense moments, they both plunged out into the light on the opposite side of the pitch, Neville grinning tiredly and Dashie cheering with a golden ball in her hand. The fact that she was upside down didn't seem to faze her in the slightest as she began chattering animatedly to Neville, the words lost to the rest of the students and to Madam Hooch, who looked like she'd died thrice over and was wiping sweat off her brow.

It was then that she wondered something that would be (and had been) echoed many more times: _Why couldn't System Baker be a normal person?_

The last few races were much more tame as Dashie and Neville leaned on each other in the stands, panting happily as the adrenaline wore off.

Finally, Hooch flew towards them, a scowl on her face as she supported a Slytherin girl covered in grass stains. "The race for the professional snitch will be next week, to let you lot recover and to let Parkinson have her wrist healed. I'd like to remind you that fitting through a quidditch hoop is very difficult and should not be attempted, even if you do get the snitch. Dismissed."

They all headed back to the castle, discussing various subjects tiredly. Dashie didn't feel much like talking so had left control to Fluttershy, who walked contently with Neville, listening contentedly as he spouted his excitation about the next Herbology lesson.

* * *

**Okay, a little shorter than the last time, but my planned next scene wouldn't feel right without a new chapter. Also I just wanted to get this out there, because writer's block has been biting me a little and I want some feedback.**

**Next time, who knows? Maybe we'll finally get onto Halloween.**


	14. Author's Note

**I just thought I should let you all know that I won't be working non-stop on this series anymore, since I already managed to burn myself out. I'm going to go on with my own pace.**

**That doesn't mean I'll stop uploading chapters, but it also doesn't mean I'll carry on. I really need to get help for my depression, and I have no idea what that entails, so my plans are non-existant right now. Hope for more if you must, but don't ****_expect_****.**

**~Flitty**

**PS: No need to worry, I may be depressed but I'm not gonna turn suicidal on you. I know that I'd be missed, and I also know that this is just a phase. If nothing else, my kid brother's all I need to turn me away from that path. :)**


	15. Troll with the Punches

**I don't have the drive to make a sandwich, much less Harry Potter.**

* * *

As it turned out, Madam Hooch was called out of the school for some unexplained reason, and the final race for the snitch was delayed until after Halloween, much to the chagrin of everyone involved. Neville and the System were patient enough that it didn't bother them much, but Dashie complained a lot to anypony who'd listen.

By Halloween, Pinkie had returned with no explanation for where she'd been the past few weeks, and had taken to literally bouncing around the castle, a spring in her step that had many of the professors worried for her safety.

Halloween was always a time for celebration, both inside Hogwarts and out, but the number of decorations this year had been amplified to alarming levels. Sometimes a student opened a door to a shower of black and orange confetti, and the denizens of the castle had grown more and more used to the loud explosions that announced the spontaneous creation of a party in the vicinity.

Throughout it all, Pinkie feigned innocence, and Twilight gave up on trying to figure out how she could have set this all up from within the System's mind. That didn't stop her from putting all the blame on the earth pony though.

Bets had gone out as to who had created such an extreme influx of party, and the majority were on the Weasley twins. Running the whole fiasco, of course, were the twins themselves, and betting was starting to become more tentative for each new bet that they accepted.

* * *

Finally, Halloween itself rolled along. It was a Thursday, so there were lessons on, but this day was something special to the System, so they did something that Twilight and Rarity usually wouldn't have dreamed of: They _skived_.

It was a quiet day that they spent walking through the forbidden forest. They all knew that it was dangerous, but with Fluttershy leading, they knew that her comforting aura would calm any potential attackers. The six hours that they usually spent going to lessons and revising, instead went towards wandering around, taking in the sights and hoping to discover something interesting.

It wasn't much, but it was something special to remember the family that had been prevented. Harry had survived for a while longer of course, but it didn't feel right to celebrate Harry and his parents at separate times.

This was a tradition that they upheld each year, and it was the only time that they let the System's body shed tears. Each member of the sextuple dealt with the loss in various ways, but they never allowed anyone to see them for these six hours.

Finally, dry-eyed and a smile on their face, the System climbed the hill back to the castle for the Halloween feast.

* * *

The feast itself wasn't particularly noteworthy. Sure, the decorations were magical, but they still weren't much compared to everything that Pinkie could do if she felt like it, and even the regular decorations of the great hall had involved floating candles and various ghosts.

The System sat with Neville as usual and got to talking about various subjects. Having obviously realised what today meant to the Boy-Who-Lived, Neville didn't question their absence in class.

Everything was normal until Professor Quirrel burst into the room.

"Troll! In the dungeons!" he yelled into the sudden silence. "Thought you ought to know." Then he dropped to the floor in a dead faint.

Rarity's eyes narrowed, and she could tell that Twilight had noticed too. "He protected himself with his arms when he fell," she explained to the others. "He didn't actually faint, so why is he faking it?"

Nopony had anything to say to that, so they just watched him as the rest of the hall was flung into pandemonium. Neville tugged on their arm, but they sat resolutely, watching even as Dumbledore raised his voice for calm. Twenty seconds passed, then forty, and then they knew that watching for longer would be pointless; Quirrel had faked, rather poorly, and was waiting for everyone else to leave the hall.

None of them heard the headmaster's orders, but Neville had and, seeing that they weren't going to resist any longer, he pulled them along by the sleeve. Finally, they snapped back to the world around them and looked around.

Somehow, their eyes were drawn to the sight of two young-looking figures leaving the main queues. "Neville," Twilight asked, pointing them out to him, "do you think we should follow those two?"

Despite his usual meekness, Neville was a Gryffindor at heart and only hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding. They both slipped out of the line unnoticed, and Twilight silenced their shoes, letting Dashie do the actual running.

As the other two figures had to deal with the sounds that their footsteps made, they easily got close enough to recognise, strangely enough, Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy.

"-not good enough," they heard Malfoy say. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this!"

"It's our fault she's in there!" Weasley shot back. "Besides, we don't actually have to _fight _the troll! It's in the dungeons, didn't you hear Quirrel? We just need to get Hermione, tell her about the troll, and get back!"

Rarity hmphed at the pale boy on principle, but she had to admit that he might not be so bad as he nodded in defeat. "And if we do find the troll somehow, we lure it towards the teachers' office, away from the other students and closer to potential help," he replied, then shuddered. "If we die, I'm haunting your ghost forever!"

The two duos jogged along until they hit a set of bathrooms. Weasley and Malfoy looked at each other, nodded and slowly pushed the door open. Apparently, they'd both sent Hermione crying to the bathroom, information that Twilight relayed to Neville, who nodded.

"Granger, you here?" Draco yelled, then froze, halfway through the door, and turned paler than usual. Ron followed his gaze and went a similar colour. Then there was a wordless bellow, and they both leapt to the side. A crunch sounded, and broken splinters of door embedded themselves in the opposite wall. Through the doorframe stood what was quite clearly a troll, ten feet tall and barely narrow enough to fit through said doorframe if it crouched.

"I-I'm alright," came the ragged voice of Hermione Granger. Fortunately, she didn't attract the attention of the troll.

Unfortunately, that meant that the troll wasn't distracted from its closest targets. Malfoy cast a hurried Protego, but still braced himself, obviously realising that he couldn't block a troll's club, but Twilight conjured her own shield, throwing the troll off balance and giving the others a chance to get out of the way.

"Stupefy!" Neville yelled, aware that the troll wouldn't go down to the spell and instead aiming in front of its face. It traced the beam of blood-red light back to its source and stumbled drunkenly towards Neville and the System. "Weasley, Malfoy! Grab Hermione and get out of here!"

Neville had read that trolls couldn't understand language, and was extremely glad that that seemed to be the case; instead of turning to the others and stopping them from escaping, it continued shambling towards the source of the noise.

Twilight hit it with her more powerful variation of a Stunner, but it just looked vacant for a moment before taking another step. "It's too resistant to magic! I'm not sure how much power I need to stun it! If I use too much I kill it, but too little and I'll drain myself before I do anything!"

Neville looked torn for a moment, but it turned into a grin. "That looks like an oak branch," he said, pointing to the troll's club. "Oak isn't resistant to magic, and a troll wouldn't be able to enchant it, right?"

In the mindscape, AJ nodded happily. _'Neville's right, Twi! Show that troll not to mess with us!'_

Twilight grinned and her magic pulled at the club, but as it turned out, it _was _resistant. Unlike the troll though, it wasn't alive, so she just yanked it out of the thing's grip with a stronger burst, then let it drop onto the troll's head.

The next few seconds were tense, but as the three other students crept out of the bathroom, the troll collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

* * *

Hermione had originally wanted to make her own reputation a sacrificial lamb for the others, but Draco had put an end to that. Instead, they told the teachers a tale of how Hermione had gone to the toilet just before Quirrel's entrance, and that the other four had gone looking for her afterwards, Draco having followed the rest to make sure that the Gryffindors had someone to actually plan for them.

The lie had worked surprisingly well, and each student had gotten ten points out of the deal.

After that, they all struck up a tentative friendship. Even Draco, who'd initially complained of being stuck with a blood traitor, a mudblood, an idiot and a disgrace to the Potter name, had been hypocritically unwilling to leave them for a while after, and would occasionally migrate over to the Gryffindor table over the next few weeks. Eventually Rarity got bored of their housemates mocking the poor kid and suggested that they move to the Hufflepuff table once a week.

_'Wait a minute!' _Pinkie exclaimed suddenly, interrupting the narrative. _'__I finally realised!'_

_'Realised what?' _Dashie ventured, an eyebrow raised. Pinkie could be so unpredictable at times.

_'Remember that one time I gave us all cakes? Well I guess they were actually cupcakes, or were they, I can't quite remember and I don't want to read back, but that's not the point! The point is, remember that one time I gave us-'_

_'Yes, Pinkie, we remember,' _Twilight grumbled, her mouth twisting at the memory of the airy cupcake. _'They were horrid, thanks for asking.'_

_'You're welcome! Anyway, I realised who was hiding stuff then!' _She suddenly had a detective's hat on, a fact that nopony questioned. Then she took out a wanted poster of Fluttershy. _'I tried liquid rainbow once upon a time, and it was waaaay too spicy for me. But I'd forgotten that, and I made a cupcake out of of liquid rainbow, so HOW COME FLUTTERSHY ATE IT WITHOUT A PROBLEM?!'_

Unnoticed by the rest of the System, Fluttershy stowed away her BowDrop-branded packet of ultra-spicy crisps and crept out of sight.

* * *

**Several people got very close to figuring out who was keeping secrets on that fateful day, but I don't think anyone linked Fluttershy's liquid-rainbow cupcake to its spiciness. I'll give half-cookies to the ones who came close.**

**And yes, I did just pull four Gryffindors into a friendship with Malfoy. Suck it, bashers.**

**Next time, who knows? Maybe I can flip the world upside down with some other ridiculous development.**


	16. Status Shifted

**Yeah, no.**

* * *

After the shock of Halloween, the five first years fell into a routine of sorts: after class each day, they'd go down to the Quidditch pitch and race on the school brooms, practice hitting bludgers at each other, or just toss around a quaffle - Draco had his own set, a fact that Ron ground his teeth at.

Hermione, having grudgingly accepted their stealing the school brooms, nevertheless refused point-blank to get on a broom without a teacher's supervision, and instead kept watch for the four in the air, both to make sure they weren't caught and to take them to the hospital wing if they were injured.

Once they'd all worn themselves out (in Hermione's case due to the constant worrying), they were all dragged to the library by Twilight and Hermione's combined physical and magical ability, where they helped each other get through the homework they'd been set.

Ron growled, head on the desk. "I can't believe Professor McGonagall gave us a foot on the potential applications of Transfiguration," he muttered. Silence fell and he looked around, to find that everyone was staring at him. "What? I was quoting."

Hermione giggled at his defensiveness, and Dashie grinned. "It's okay, Ron. Your secret is safe with us," she said dramatically. "Nobody will ever know that you're an _egghead_." she wriggled her fingers in front of his face at the last word, and he batted them away, glaring at her.

"Besides that," Rarity continued, matching Draco's posture with a raised eyebrow, "there are so many different applications for Transfiguration that I'd more likely run out of parchment than ideas. And that's without giving an explanation for each, as Professor McGonagall expects us to."

"Ideas such as?" Ron pressed, and Rarity sighed as she was shoved aside by Twilight.

"Storage, temporary decorations, temporary removal of obstacles, creation of tools for the purpose of the permanent removal of obstacles, assassination-"

Neville, who had chosen that moment to take a sip from his glass, promptly burst in incredulous laughter, spraying pumpkin juice everywhere. Twilight vanished it on reflex before it hit anything, but that didn't stop Draco's look of utter disgust. Neville coughed for a few seconds, then apparently chose to ignore the fact that he'd almost soaked everyone. "How'd you get from bridges to murder?"

"Well, I figured that the permanent removal of obstacles was a valid idea, and people aren't usually classed as obstacles, but if they were classed as obstacles, the permanent removal of them would involve murder, and more specifically, assassination," Twilight explained reasonably.

Then she noticed the stares of four humans and five ponies. It might have just been her, but she swore that they were further away than usual...

Draco was the first to recover. "Yeah, don't put that in the actual essay," he deadpanned. "Merlin knows we don't need the professors to think you're a psychopath."

Twilight looked affronted. "It was a valid thought! The specifications didn't say anything about the ideas needing to be _legal _or _morally sound_. It just says 'Homework: List and explain, giving your reasoning, some of the potential uses of Transfiguration. Minimum one side.'"

Ron, still a little green, turned to look at Neville's version of the question and saw that it was identical. "Great, we have another Hermione, but this one's mentally unstable."

Twilight groaned, trying to ignore the others' attempts to make fun of her, which wasn't helping since even Neville and Hermione were laughing. It was going to be a long study session.

* * *

Minerva brought her eyes back to the tea in front of her as System sat with his new friends at the Hufflepuff table. It had been quite a shock to see them together the first time, but she was slowly getting used to the massive shift in the status quo.

If she was honest though, young Draco was the first Slytherin in quite a while that she had taken a liking to. He obviously still emulated his father's beliefs when possible, but he'd somehow managed to befriend four people with opinions and backgrounds wildly different from his own. Just a few weeks ago he'd been taunting Hermione and Ronald, and here he was chatting happily with them after a complete one-eighty.

She'd wondered if he was being so... Different for his own benefit, but had shot that down, angry at herself for even suggesting it. How was house unity supposed to be achievable if even the deputy headmistress was biased?

Besides, Draco's overall attitude had improved greatly since Halloween. His grades had shot up, along with the rest of the group's. Even Hermione, top of her class in almost every subject, had benefitted from the group's new study habits she was getting similar grades as the ones she had before, but in much less parchment, and many of the professors were almost crying in relief as the twenty-foot essays became two.

According to Severus, whom she was still incredibly creeped out by after his change, Hermione's grade had also been steadily climbing in the new Potions class. Partnered with Ronald or Draco, as she most often was (Neville and System worked best together regardless of the subject matter), Hermione could fill whatever role that her partner lacked, and make up for their weakness. It had taken a while to explain her strange behaviour, but Minerva had eventually realised that Hermione was actually much more interested in what _wasn't _being considered than what was.

Neville and System had a very odd dynamic to them: one would come up with the ideas, while the other would attempt to shoot them down with logic. Then they would switch roles and do it all over again, building up to whatever insane goal they were working towards. She'd seen similar tactics with the Weasley twins, and she considered telling Severus of her thoughts on the matter, or even acting on them in her own classroom.

An uncharacteristically loud remark from Draco brought her out of her musings, and she sipped thoughtfully on her tea.

It was cold.

* * *

**Just a brief break from the action, looking into the new status quo. I really like the idea of seeing how the different changes would be interpreted outside the main characters' group, so we've got a bit of that.**

**Also, I'm pretty sure the time between Halloween and Christmas would be ridiculously boring without Harry's place on the Quidditch team, which you might notice that the System doesn't have. Which is odd, since he has someone who was born to fly in his head in this canon.**

**Weird.**

**Next time: Who knows? Maybe just some random lessons to pad out the story. Maybe I'll just jump to Christmas, or maybe Madam Hooch'll be back before then.**


End file.
